"Would anyone still love me?”

 

Have you ever looked at your friends and wondered “Do they really like me? Am I a likeable person?”. Sometimes, even with our closest friends and family who have been around us for years- the people who know us inside-out, the people who have seen the best and the ugliest sides of us, we often find ourselves asking this question. 

 

When I was in my teens, I often battled with the idea of insecurity. At the prime age of 13, the notion of comparison was introduced to me through my fellow female classmates. They always wore the coolest shoes, carried pretty bags and had the latest phones. As a kid who didn’t dare to ask my parents for more money, I constantly had mind games of inadequacy - feeling like I was never cool enough or never pretty enough. This was when I started to create a persona for myself to compensate for my insecurity- “The Outspoken and Popular Girl”, when inside, I was crumbling with fear and anxiety. 

 

On the outside, I would speak to male seniors to achieve a sense of affirmation that I was likeable, while inside I would always fear what others would think of me. Would they think I was cool? Or would they think I was a try-hard?

 

Things worsened when puberty hit me like a truck - I started getting severe acne which scared my confidence and sense of security. I couldn’t make eye contact with people with the fear that they would just be staring at the ugly red blotches on my face every time I talk to them. At that point of time - I couldn’t even tell my bestest friends how I felt, because of the fear of judgement. I feared the moment I opened up to them, they would judge me and abandon me. So I always kept a front of “positivity” that continued to eat me up. This whole situation just made me feel ugly, unliked and unloved. 

 

In those times, I felt extremely fake, no one knew the real me, no one knew how I was feeling about my acne, about myself - and I could only turn to God. There were countless nights I would just cry about my helpless situation and ask for healing repeatedly to no avail. There was even a time where I lost all trust in God because He was not healing me. 

 

It wasn’t until my mom sensed my change in personality that she had a talk with me. Tears just spilled out of my eyes as I opened up about how I was actually feeling for the first time in years. The weight of the burden slowly melted off my shoulders and I continued sharing. I realised in that moment that the fear of opening up, even to my family members, just faded away. My mom left me with this line that I will always remember “Jojo, you are beautiful, not just in my eyes but in God’s eyes. Many daughters have done well, but you, you exceed them all”. 

 

At that moment, I just felt so known. But yet so so loved. So known for all my outer flaws, my deepest inner feelings and insecurities but yet so loved and so accepted.

 

Hey, the one reading this: are you scared to be known? Are you scared that the moment you open up, judgement and hate will attack you? I’m here to let you know that there is a love out there. A love of a heavenly father, a true friend that knows you inside out - the best and ugliest parts of you, yet still loves you as you are. 

 

You are Fully known, and Fully Loved.

​

​

Published on 11/11/2021

​