Why do insecurities exist and why are most girls insecure? Here in the US, we are taught that we must look a certain way, be a certain weight, have a certain style, be a certain height, etc... There are so many standards that we have to live up to in order to be considered "beautiful". For a long time, here in America, my skin color was considered ugly, hideous even. Anything that wasn't a pretty shade of porcelain was ugly.

I recently graduated from a predominantly white private Christian school. In the secondary grades there were about 19 black students. When I first started in fifth grade, I wasn't bullied. In fact, I had a lot of friends. I was a social tomboy. Every friend that I had was a guy. My first crush was white, and he was one of my best friends. I had done my best to keep it a secret but by the time I hit seventh grade, everyone knew and I had lost my closest friend. Someone had told him how I felt about him and he completely shunned me. One day, I finally got to courage up to confront him. When I asked him why he said, "It's weird because you're black and black is... ugly." UGLY. You can imagine how I felt, I was only 13 years old. I began to look at myself in disgust and tried to become pretty. I now know that that was a stupid waste of time because I'd always been beautiful. Every girl is beautiful. Sometimes, you can't see it but I promise you, it's there. Sometimes, you may question what other people see in you. Often times, it can be hard to remember but God made you fearfully and wonderfully. There's no way to say that you're ugly and then say that God makes everything beautiful. I can't even believe that society had that branded into someone's mind at such a young age.

And now, in 2016, as a high school graduate, I see what I should have been seeing all along. It really is about inner beauty and mortal opinions don't matter. I have met so many physically attractive people with disgusting personalities (not that I'm one to judge because I am by no means flawless). But the point is, their personalities made me not find them attractive at all. It sounds silly, I know, but it's real... After all, physical beauty fades away and what people think of you really doesn't matter. God values your heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, "But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”"

Make sure your heart is more beautiful than your physical appearance and remember whose opinions really matter.