I remember the first time I really felt like I wasn't enough. I was in high school hanging out with all my friends and, like many high school girls, we were catching each other up on all the hot gossip going around the school. Sharing who was dating who and who did what, for some reason, was always a conversation we could keep going forever...so we did, basically. On this specific day we got out of our dual credit course early, so we were waiting in our school's performing arts center for our next class to begin. Our conversation was nothing different this day, but for some reason it left me double-thinking every aspect of who I was. Do they think I dress well enough? Do they think I'm funny, smart, pretty enough? Surely they do; they're some of my best friends. I let these thoughts eat at me all day, until I finally kicked them to the back of my head and told them to shush. Day after day I found myself looking for the approval of these people, when in reality the only person's approval I needed was my own.

You would think that at 18 I'd be able to realize that, to be able to cut off the negative thoughts consuming me, but it wasn't that simple. I knew exactly what needed to be done. I knew that all these thoughts inside my head weren't true, and I knew they were false depictions of what the world really saw me as but I still couldn't let them go. They stayed with me everywhere I went. I changed my style, my look, my hobbies. I spent my first year of college completely lost, trying to figure out who I was, trying to win the approval of people that I didn't care about. How sad is that? I spent my first year of college, a year that I could have used to grow immensely, wasted on trying to be someone that I didn't even want to be. So I decided to change. I decided to be the person that I wanted to be -- the person God intended for me to be.

The way I see it, you have no right to think anything but the world about yourself, because that's exactly how your Creator sees you. Imagine putting everything you had into a piece of work. You put all your energy and all of your love into this piece of work, and when it's finished you are blown away at how stunning it turned out to be so you show it off to everyone! Suddenly, you hear all these bad things about your work of art, like it isn't good enough or beautiful enough. How would that make you feel? Pretty terrible, I'm assuming. Now think about it this way, God spent his own valuable time creating you. He put every single ounce of His ginormous love into creating you. Yet, you still want to say that you aren't good enough? My, oh my, what an insult that is to the One that loves you and all your insecurities for what they are.

You are made for a purpose. You are on this planet because God thought that everyone needed someone just like you in their life. You are special and you are important.

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." Psalm 139:14