Dear middle school girls who called me ugly,

Thank you. Those words most likely seem strange since no one particularly likes being called ugly, but I am being sincere. I honestly am grateful that I had to experience that stomach-sinking feeling of seeing and hearing people like you discussing how horrible I looked.

While you never said the words to my face, I heard the whispers and saw the chat bubbles on the computer screens of the girls who sat in front of me in class. I read my name on those screens quite often, actually.

I'm not writing this thank-you letter to be sarcastic or to boast about how my life has turned out to be so wonderful. I'm writing this because those experiences in middle school and high school taught me something valuable: What people think about you, especially about the physical aspects of yourself, has absolutely no relevance in the grand scheme of life.

I've always known that I'm not particularly pretty in the way that society defines prettiness, and I've grown completely indifferent to that fact over the years. But the fact that at age 13 I was struggling with a whole host of hormonal issues that caused undesirable side effects didn't help the way I viewed myself as a young teenage girl.

Back then, you probably didn't know that I spent a lot of time at the endocrinologist, getting numerous blood tests and other, sometimes quite painful, tests done to try and fix my medical problems. You had no idea that I had to take medicine that caused me to live with constant nausea and sickness for a month before I finally adjusted to it. Would you have treated me any differently had you known all that? Probably not, but that's not my point.

The reason for writing this letter is to tell you just how much having to deal with your less-than-loving attitudes about my appearance has helped me in life. You forced me to deal with the fact that I was not a normal girl and that I was, indeed, ugly by most people's standards. And you know what? I figured out that those facts about myself made no difference in my life. I had a couple of close friends who loved me regardless of how I looked, and my family never commented on or even noticed my appearance because they loved me unconditionally as well.

The fact of the matter is, I learned that a group of girls laughing about me behind my back never once affected my true happiness in life. You spent so much time tearing me down behind my back that you never stopped to notice that I couldn't have cared less what you thought of me.

The most valuable lesson I learned during this time of my life is that God doesn't get glory from my looks, but from my actions as a Christian fueled by the Holy Spirit living in me. Surviving the vitriol of middle school gossip made me realize that circumstances cannot control a person. However, we are responsible for our attitudes about our circumstances. I'll always be thankful that I was a Christian as I went through middle school because Christians understand that self-esteem is not an important facet of life.

So, here is my sincere thank you to all the girls who called me ugly in middle school. I truly believe God used you to teach me lessons about life that I needed to learn the hard way. I don't know what most of you are doing in life, but I hope you have success and the love of friends and family. Above all, I hope and pray, each day, that you have experienced the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and have become Christians.