Not all is fair

“You are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
-Psalm 139:14

This verse was taught to me in my early childhood days. Yet, no one to this day has truly reflected the essence of this verse in my life.

Hundreds of sheet masks, beauty creams and herbal face packs—all to get my skin tone a shade lighter. Why? —a relative of mine said, “Oh my, you have become black as coal!”

Countless fad diets to starving myself. Why? —a family friend said, “You have become so fat; you would be so ugly if you put on any more weight.”

Am I really fearfully and wonderfully made? I wondered.

Sadly, all these people are Christians.

Have you ever felt under-accomplished despite achieving a lot? A sense of insecurity or dissatisfaction about the person you are today?

I have. And I still get bouts of it.

In my early teens, I used to get bogged down by even the tiniest negative statement from another. I have seen people scoff at dark skin tones and widebodies. I have heard some of my relatives glorify my father’s fair skin tone, calling him handsome in front of my mother who has a darker hue—subtly stating that my father could have done better. I hated this discrimination. I was a victim of this as well.

I have been called plenty of names—“black sheep”, “power-cut” “charcoal” and other names synonymous with ugly.

Am I really fearfully and wonderfully made? I wondered.

I thought it would get better when I got older but it didn’t. I had told myself that I would never marry someone who is light-skinned. But not everything we say comes to pass, does it? —I got married into a fair-skinned family. It was like I opened the pandora’s box—almost every conversation revolved around body weight and skin tone. My wedding weight gain, hitting those trigger points of being dark and then, conversations on other girls who are light-skinned and pretty. And apparently, dark-skinned women look bad when they put make-up on—*sigh*
Made me question—why do all these physical aspects matter so much? Why do people and their opinions hurt me a lot? Why do I get so defensive whenever people comment on my appearance?

Am I ugly? Maybe, my husband could have done better? Should I just wipe off my make-up? Will I look good without make-up?

Am I really fearfully and wonderfully made? I wondered.

 These thoughts were frequent visitors in my brain; uninvited yet frequent, mostly triggered by certain scornful statements by “people around me”—let’s call this group, Pam. They did everything from thrusting unnecessary labels to giving me opinions on how I should change my physicality so that it is appealing to them. Pam purposely called other girls fair and pretty in front of me. Pam glorified my husband’s light skin and there was worry on their faces every time he got a tan; as for me, I got no compliments. It reached a point that I couldn’t stand them; I did not want to be anywhere close to them.

There were nights I slept crying. I dreaded visiting family friends or relatives. I did not want to hear stories of the old times when they had good-looking childhood friends. And most of all, I was scared to step out with friends who had fair, good-looking wives. I did not want Pam—I was tired of hearing them criticise my appearance. I wish I was in a cocoon with just me and no one around.  

All this was until I happened to meditate on the first half of John 11 the other day—a known passage where Lazarus was raised from the dead. Although I have read this passage a couple of times, I got a whole new perspective this time. Jesus came in four days after the death which was strange, knowing the fact that Jesus loved Lazarus dearly. Scientifically, it takes around two days for a corpse to start emitting a bad odour, a process called putrefaction because of the micro-organisms in the intestines; the smell gets really bad after four days. Jesus was ready to step into that stinking situation and speak into the impossibility. Most of us are like the dead Lazarus, in a tomb of guilt, pain, shame, insecurity, and struggle; decaying and emitting a foul odour of hurt, bound by bandages of false labels given to us by the world. Jesus could have stopped that death but He didn’t because He wanted us to know that He does not mind any kind of disgust and that He calls us out of that tomb of shame. The most interesting part of this passage is towards the end when Lazarus steps out of the tomb—Jesus did not untie the bandages. He could have, but He did not. Instead, He asked “The people around him” to unbind him. This took me by surprise as God gave “the people around” a significant role to “untie the bandages”. Suddenly, Pam made sense. Through this passage, God was trying to teach me to embrace “People around me”; to value the ones I wanted to run away from.

People excrete their hurtful comments and statements on us but God wants us to use the same excreta as a fertiliser to grow into a beautiful plant. Not everyone who comes into our lives, water the plant that we are but all of them fertilise us unknowingly. Thank God for the ones who water you and bless the ones who fertilise you. The “People around you” are the workers that God has strategically appointed to prune and throw manure on you so that you grow stronger. So, let them do their job while you focus on growing into a dense plant that blooms, displaying an essence of the beauty of God’s love.

Remember, you are made with such care by the hands of God. He made all the colours and He has never called fair skin superior to darker shades. And if our perfect Heavenly Father does not look down on you based on the shade of your skin, how can anyone else?

Jesus does not care if you are stinking or in a tomb, for that matter. He calls out to you. And, yes, you are fearfully and wonderfully made—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.