I Love My Face

[Guest Post by Songine’ Clark] – I love my face.

Yeah, I said it.

I love my brown eyes, I love my big nose, I love my round lips, I love my small ears, and I love my brown skin.

There was a time when I definitely could not say those things confidently though.

I remember back in high school growing up and going through those lovely body changes. I developed pretty early, so I guess my body decided to just let acne run rampant during my middle and high school years.

I tried it all to make the acne disappear, but nothing worked.

It did suck going through those times where image was looked at and criticized pretty often.

I’ve heard things like, “She would be pretty if…” to some old friends actually talking about my acne.

It sucked seeing those Neutrogena commercials with the celebrities who were obviously wearing makeup promoting the acne medicine; or seeing Beyonce’ on another cover of a magazine looking flawless.

Don’t get me wrong.

There were good days where my face wasn’t so bad, but there were also days when I just wanted to hide.

I felt like my face didn’t fit the status quo.

I wished my skin was lighter; I wished my hair wasn’t so thick; I wished I didn’t have to wear glasses; I wished my eyes were big and baby doll like; I wished my eyes were sultry like Angelina Jolie; I wished my lips were smaller; and I wished I didn’t have to deal with acne.

The list could go on and on of the things I wanted to change about not only my face, but my body.

Then, some truth came my way.

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” -1 Samuel 16:7

At the time, I grew up in the church and I was still going to church.

The fact that the Lord did not care about if I looked like Beyonce’, but how my heart was, meant a lot to me.

You would think I’ve considered that a while ago, but I had to see it in writing for myself.

Loving the way I looked unfortunately didn’t come totally till my freshman year of college. It was as I was growing in my relationship with God that I started to see myself as God did. It was unexpected seeing as I had crazier things going on in my life (a whole other story, a whole other blog post), but it happened.

As I was growing in my relationship with God, another truth came to me.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”

How beautiful is that?!

The fact that God wove me together in the depths of the earth, he wanted my frame to be the way it is, he saw my unformed body, the fact that HE created me was and still is mind blowing.

My confidence has grown since high school and I love my face, because he created it.

I was not meant to look like somebody else, I was meant to look like Songine’.

Yes, we get bombarded with images of celebrities and models every day, but we got to realize that we are just as beautiful. Remember, we are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Songine’ Clarke is a recent graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a Bachelors of Art in Journalism. Songine’ is currently a volunteer staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and a freelance writer. Songine’ currently resides on the south side of Chicago.