Who said Broken was bad?

“Rejection steals the best of who I am by reinforcing the worst of what’s been said to me.”

  

I have had many different things said to me or about me. Words that have brought about encouragement. Words that have been crushing to hear, and still others that have defined my life in ways I never dreamed. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to write about how such everyday things have made a rather substantial impact on my life. I normally write to share insight in a phrase I have heard or a book that changes my perspective. Today, well, I am going to become real. This is my story, my perspective, my inner most protected part. The one thing I keep hidden behind the façade of a smile or a sarcastic comment.

Me.

Words. We read, write, and say them every day. They are the basis for everyday interactions. Most of the time we never think about the significance some words can hold to others. Or how the repetition of some words can change the course of life. Mine was changed in that very way. The sting of years of words said of me even to me by people who didn’t see the harm in saying them. The constant remarks like, “if you were skinner than boys would notice you.” “Maybe if you tried harder people would want to be friends with you.” “Maybe if you weren’t so smart, we would have asked to join.” In real world situations, they are often not commentated back to back like that. Regardless, off handed comments that drawn out over several months and/or years will do some very prominent damage. These constant what if’s start to sounds more and more like they are actual truths. And for me they did just that. I let the what if’s take hold in the darkness and become my reality over that of God’s truths. I let the darkness find a place inside me and infect my inner most being. I believed I was Unwanted. Fat. Ugly. Rejected.

I have spent years struggling with my self-worth and self-image because of what others have said of me. The rejection I received time and time again by friends became more than just an emotion to me. It was a message that was sent to the core of who I was, and caused me to believe the lies about myself. Those lies brought about defining moments in my life, and I can’t say that all of them were up-lifting. And yet, not all of them were valleys either. Each moment brought about a choice on my part of how I was going to see it through. Was I going to chase the impossible? Which for me was unlearning everything I was ever told about myself by so called friends and peers and breaking the cycle of all the negative thoughts I had created about myself.

After many years of doubt that I could be anything more that those words said to me long ago, I decided to give impossible a try. It wasn’t easy. It isn’t easy because, honestly, this isn’t a snap of the fingers, wake up one morning and let everything go, issue. This is a real battle of one’s mind. I want people to understand that. I want you to know that we aren’t just having a “bad day.” And please, don’t tell us, “let me show you what fat is.” When you do that, you become half of the problem. We already have to face the media’s determination of beauty every day. What we need is for someone to understand that this is a real mental disorder. The mind is a complex system of synapses. Once it gets damaged, you can’t just hit reboot and fix it within a matter of seconds. It can be fixed, but it could take months, years, even a lifetime.

I learned some difficult things about not only myself, but friends, family, and life as well. Yet, I still wake up every morning ready to do the impossible. Yes, I still fight the mirror, every day in fact. Some days I just don’t even bother to look in one. I don’t have it all together, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost the battle. As long as I don’t stay and dwell in that negativity, I haven’t lost. I just need to keep going because I learned that through all of it, there is hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope that God has a purpose for this messy life of mine. Hope that the reason for this struggle and pain is far greater than the struggle itself. That this broken me is better suited for the opportunity God has for me.

This broken me that God calls Important. That He says has Worth. That He Loves. That he says is

Beautiful.

I may have to tell myself those statements over and over multiple times a day, but that is alright. I don’t have to be ok right now in this moment. God just needs me to be willing to try even in the brokenness. I think that being broken isn’t such a bad thing. Why?

Because I have come to fully believe that the breaking of me will be the making of me. A new me. A stronger me. A me that is capable of so much more than one without cracks.