I never could understand how someone who acted like they were perfect secretly hated themselves. Then, yesterday I learned about a huge lie that has colored my entire life and somehow, I understood.
I have an older brother. All my life, I was told that he was better than me. He was stronger, he was funnier, he was more in every way. Most importantly, because he was a boy, he was supposed to be able to do so much more because of this horrible idea of gender that my parents had. Finally, when we were in school, I was told that my brother was extremely smart. He was a genius. He never had any trouble in school. I should always try to do as good as he did in school. We were both a year ahead when I was in 2nd grade, and he was in fourth grade. My brother was mature enough to handle it, but I wasn’t and had to move back to 1st grade. All my life, I’ve been told he was special enough to be able to skip a grade, but I wasn’t. I had to be held back with the other kids my own age.
Then, I went through some of my mom’s old papers last night. He wasn’t as mature and all together as everyone made it seem. When I was held back so that I could make As and Bs, he struggled in school at first making some Cs, lots of Bs, and several As. I spent my entire life thinking he was so much better than me. I idolized him and wished that I could be more like him. I wished that I could make the good grades that he was making, except it turns out that I was making good grades all along.
I don’t really care about how they put him up on a pedestal. I just don’t understand why they wanted me to think I wasn’t good enough. And yet, I learned that there’s never a qualification about being enough. I just needed to be me. I learned that I am an imperfect flawed human being, but that’s the way God made me. He created me with a perfection and He didn’t make any mistakes. I am supposed to be exactly the way I am and because I know this, I also know that in my perfect imperfection I can be loved. God loves me. My husband loves me. Lots of people love me. I can love as well because I don’t need to seek out perfection. I just need to seek out my brothers and sisters in Christ in their flawed perfect imperfection and love them as I would love myself.
However, yesterday, I realized that when someone hates themselves, they can’t imagine that anyone could love them. That person just can’t understand how anyone could love the person that they are. When they present themselves to the world, they aren’t about to give the world a chance to tear them down anymore than they have tore themselves down. They refuse to show weakness. They absolutely will not admit defeat and they will never admit to any imperfection or flaw. The people who hate themselves see those things as more reason for the world to hate them as they hate themselves. They don’t want to give the world any more ammunition. They are scared that someone somewhere is going to see through their appearance and realize deep down inside they are flawed and imperfect. The secret will come out that that person truly hates themselves and can’t understand love at all. They can’t understand that flaws and imperfections make us human.
I pray that God help us all to understand that it is in our weaknesses and our flaws that we learn to love each other with the great compassion, humility, and understanding.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
