I AM BEAUTIFUL!!!

Over the last 4 months, as I have started this journey, I have had so many conversations with so many women . . . some battling a food addiction like me, some who aren’t.  Women who can look at their mother, sister, friend, daughter, even me & see beauty, but when they look at themselves they can’t & don’t.  They look at themselves so critically, some not even able to let others compliment them without laughing off the compliment as baseless & unwarranted.  Why do we, as women, struggle so much to recognize our own worth?  Why do we fail to see the beauty of who we are?  Why do we flippantly reject the acclamation & acceptance we receive from others, but allow the wounds from hurtful words & rejection to fester well into our adulthood . . . & sometimes even longer?  Why can’t we acknowledge that we are beautiful . . . just as we are?  Why are we not able to see the beauty of who we are?  More directly, why am I not able to see the beauty of who I am?  Why are you not able to see the beauty of who YOU are?  Let me begin with a story.

It was the beginning of my senior year of college.  I spent 6 to 8 weeks the summer before in Ohio working as counselor for Wittenberg University’s Upward Bound Program.  My grandfather, the last of my grandparents, had passed away that summer as well.  I had been a resident assistant for the previous 2 years & had just moved to the freshman only dorm to work specifically with freshman so that I didn’t have to deal with the attitudes of sophomores, juniors & seniors.  I was seeing Angelo, who is now my husband, at the time.  I am not exactly sure why I am giving all this detail, except that it feels relevant.  Maybe on this particular day, I had all these things in my mind.  So much had changed.  Things just felt so different & confusing.  It felt like my life had been turned upside down . . . little did I know it was just the start of some huge changes in my life.  At the end of that semester, I would find out I was pregnant with my son, Isaac.  It was a lonely & insecure time in my life.   Looking back on that time, it felt very dark & sad.  I remember having a conversation with myself in my head on the way to the dorm shower one day.  I was wishing to myself that I could be beautiful.  I weighed over 300 pounds at the time, so it seems like a very normal thought for a girl or woman to have who is insecure in her physical appearance.  I don’t know how the Lord talks to you, but with me, often times He just interrupts the conversation that I am having with myself.  J  I heard the Lord say, “You ARE beautiful.”  I thought, “But, Lord, I want the WORLD to see me as beautiful, not just You.”  I have to say that what came next was one of the only times that I have ever felt the Lord spoke, not angrily, but sternly to me . . . He “raised His voice” so to speak.  He said, “Michael, the world does not know what beauty is!”

That conversation with the Lord left a huge impression on me . . . obvious from the fact that it still impacts me as a 31-year-old woman.  It is odd; I would never say that I was a girl who hated or even disliked myself, even despite my weight issues. My mother, who has always had a thin to average build, implanted in me a deep sense of self worth.  Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely insecure at times & had a deep desire for love & acceptance from someone other than my family, the people I knew loved me unconditionally.  I wanted to know that someone else saw me for who I was, that someone else saw past my weight to the happy, fun-loving, witty, passionate girl that I was.  I wanted to know that others, outside of my family, saw my heart & accepted me; I wanted even more than acceptance.  I wanted someone to look at me, see me for who I was, & love me so much that THEY chose me.  Ultimately, isn’t that what all of us want.  We just want someone who loves us despite even our greatest flaws.  However, overall, I would say that I was pretty self-confident.  I knew who I was.  I knew that despite my struggle with weight, I had value & worth.  I remember a time when a “friend” told me that my weight would make it hard for me to find a job when I graduated from college.  In all honesty, that baffled me.  I may have been fat, but I knew I was smart!  I worked hard & made good grades.  My teachers liked me.  I knew that I would make a good employee.  How did my weight factor into my value as an employee?  What did my work have to do with my weight?  The two seemed unrelated to me, but weight wasn’t the only thing that I had to struggle through to see the beauty of who I was; there were other things that made me feel less than or unworthy of love.

As a child, I was the “good” girl.  It was the only way that I understood how to obtain love.  It’s funny because, in all honesty, children & especially teens tend to really dislike the “good” girls & boys; I think mostly because the impression of a person who tries to be “good” is that they think they are better than everyone else.  Being good was my way of trying to please the people I loved.  I tried to please my parents, teachers, even the Lord with my “goodness” . . . laughable isn’t it, but that is the understanding of a child.  That was my understanding of love.  I loved the Lord as best I knew how AS A CHILD . . . & at that point in time, the best way I knew how to please Him was by being good!  The problem with being a “good” girl is that at some point you are going to fail at it.  Isaiah 64:6 says, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, & all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; 
we all shrivel up like a leaf, & like the wind our sins sweep us away.” The Bible says that even our righteousness, our “goodness” is as filthy, dirty rags. We cannot ever be good enough.  If being loved is based on how “good” we are . . . well we will NEVER be worthy of love; we will never be beautiful.

I remember feeling unworthy of love . . . when I was no longer a “good girl”.  After a homosexual relationship as a young teenager, after sexual relationships with 2 different men in college, after becoming pregnant by one of those 2 men . . . how could a HOLY God ever love me?!?  I had turned to these various relationships in search of love, in search of acceptance & all I got in return was used . . . all the while I was using those same people who were using me.  Being used is a 2 way street.  After all this, I now felt unlovable.  However, my mother had taught me a very important lesson as a child that would help me through my feelings of self-loathing & shame . . . that lesson was confession.  Confession is a very strange thing.  Think about something you have done . . . the thing that you are most ashamed of doing in life.  Now think about having to share that secret with someone.  Terrifying isn’t it!  Confession is so terrifying because of the risk of rejection once we confess what we really are & what we have done.  However, on the flip side, I have found that despite the terror of confession, confession is the greatest source of FREEDOM!  I have found that not only God, but also people are more forgiving & merciful when we are able to admit that we were wrong, when we have messed up. The other aspect of confession is that once we have confessed that thing that we are most afraid to share, no one can hang that thing over our head any longer.  Our “little” secret no longer has power over us once it is no longer a secret.

Now, you might ask, what do confession & beauty have to do with one another?  I have come to see that the people that I find the most beautiful are open, honest, & genuine people. We find true beauty in one another when we are willing to share our hearts with one another, when we don’t cover up & hide our failings, imperfections, & circumstances, when we share our lives, good & bad, & when we are willing to listen to the lives of others.  The most beautiful people are those who are confident in who they are, not because they are perfect, but because, despite their imperfections, failings, & circumstances, they know who they are.  This confidence does not come across as arrogance . . . in fact it comes off as quite the opposite, humility & beauty.  Let me just name you a few of the most beautiful women that I know . . . the beautiful women that I love:

Laura Bagley, my mom.  How can I NOT include the person who constantly encouraged my sister & I & always expressed that, despite everything we ever put her through, we were beautiful both inside & out?  She is the person that both of us call in a moment’s notice in any situation because we know she will comfort us & love us when we need comfort & love & give it to us straight when we need to be straightened out.    

Hannah Eddy, my little sister.  Just sit down with Hannah for a couple of hours.  She would be more than willing to share with you about her rebellious teen years & her struggles in life, but you would never guess all that to talk to her now.  She is a hard-working, loving, fun mother of 4 precious children.  She knows who is she is and when you are around her you are getting the real Hannah, no fluff. 

Donna Bagley, my aunt.  You will never find a woman more consistent in who she is. She is not one woman to your face and another behind your back.  What you see is what you get.  I have never met someone more faithful to the values & beliefs that they hold.  She is a woman who knows what she believes and lives it.

Melonie Flavin, my dear friend.  Melonie is just one of those people that when we really got to know one another, we clicked.  No fluff, no sugar . . . I can just be who I am with her . . . completely raw & uncensored, just like with the 3 members of my family listed above.  I am able to share things with Melonie that I would not just share with anyone.  She takes the time to see my heart, to see who I really am.  She sees my great days and my irritable, lousy days (cause like it or not, we all have both), & she loves me through them all.  She is an awesome wife, a wonderful mom & an incredible friend. 

Missy Lashley, my precious friend & co-worker.  I proactively received permission from Missy to share some of her story on my blog. Missy was sexually abused by her father who ultimately went to prison for his actions.  At 16, Missy had her oldest son, Austin, and was married.  Around the time Missy was 19, her mother died from colon cancer.  Then in 2004 on Mother’s Day weekend, Missy’s 2^nd son, Taylor, drowned at the age of 2.  You look at just this short summary of parts of Missy’s life and how would you expect to find this woman . . . broken, destroyed, or perhaps, after all Missy has survived, even suicidal?  I often think of Missy and wonder at the friendly, joyful, beautiful person that I see.  She just exudes    joyfulness.  I look at her and she radiates beauty . . . from all that brokenness and suffering . . . beauty.

Lauren Thomas, my former co-worker & family photographer (www.laurenthomasphotography.com) . . . yes that is a plug for her business on my blog.  J  One day I am determined to add friend to this list of things that Lauren is to me; unfortunately, we just haven’t had quite that much time to spend together as of yet.  You don’t really even have to know Lauren to see her beauty.  It radiates out of her eyes and her smile.  She is one of the friendliest, sweetest, kindest people I have ever met.  She is one of those people that once you meet her, you just want to get to know her better because you can see from the outside in and the inside out the beauty that lies inside of her.

Naomi & Shiloh Hubbard, my baby girls.  My daughters leave me in awe each and every day.  They both entered this world welcomed by the hardest of circumstances . . . they were micro-preemies . . . 24 weeks, 5 days weighing 1 lb, 6 oz and 23 weeks, 3 days weighing 1 lb, 4 oz, respectively.  They struggled and fought just to survive, but they did more than just survive; they have flourished.  They have both done exceeding above all that every doctor could foretell or imagine.  They are both happy little girls who will grow into extraordinary women, and they LOVE life.  They are awe-inspiring, and, to be honest I know this sounds crazy coming from an adult regarding a child, but there is a sort of reverence that I hold for each of them. 

Finally, I will be bold enough to name one last beautiful woman that I know . . . Laura Michael Hubbard . . . ME!  I have numerous imperfections & flaws.  I was “good girl” who failed miserably at being good (see above  J).  I was the fat girl looking for love who was determined to find someone who loved me for who I was.  I became the single mother of a wonderful boy.  Despite our rough start, I married a wonderful man who loved me as I was, for who I was.  I was the NICU mom of 2 precious micro-preemie baby girls.   I am the mother of 2 precious babies that I never got to comfort & love here in this world.  I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, friend . . . I am someone special.  I am a woman with a perfection complex who has to remind herself every day that it is okay that she is imperfect because it is her imperfections that leave her desperate for a Savior, desperate for Jesus . . . and, when you look at me through the blood of my Savior, those imperfections just disappear.  I will no longer doubt my beauty or hide who I am . . . I AM BEAUTIFUL!  Now can you learn to see that YOU are beautiful, too?