I am a reject.

Five pounds heavier, Cadbury chocolate drool down my cheek, and The Holiday playing off in the distance and I’m still me. Satan plays brutal tricks on me sometimes that I feel as though I can’t handle. Have you ever met those girls that seem to entrance any man that they so desire? It is this incredible ability that I have never fully come to understand. Then these men, bless their hearts, seem to fall deep in love with these women only to find themselves a few weeks in and completely devastated over the heartache that the woman they thought was for them is now gone. Guess the game doesn’t work so well if the participants aren’t fully aware of it.

Tonight I received some news. Rejection. Rejection, rejection, rejection. There is no amount of Ben & Jerry’s that seems to medicate or remedy the emotional and mental trauma that come along with it. I’m not good enough. My stomach is too fat. I have a beauty mark under my left eye that is gross. I have to tweeze my eyebrows or I look like a member of Jacob’s wolf pack. I understand. I get that I may not be exactly what you are looking for. Tonight I discovered that a man who I had found highly attractive my freshmen year fell instantly for the woman that I used to wish to be.

That is the thing about envy. Although it may be all consuming, it seems to come in waves and currently I am or was sitting pretty in regards to my opinion of myself. I don’t think I’m hot. I think I am a true beauty with a solid heart and a willingness to get to know anyone. I have to pull at my jeans to camouflage an extra roll or two of holiday weight gain. My eyeliner never really seems to stay put. My arms wave hello just as much as my hands do. I shuffle when I walk. My hair looks like I just woke up at any point in the day and when I truly smile, my top lip becomes nonexistent. I am imperfect. I am not the woman who I so envied. I don’t have the ability to entrance any man of my choosing, and I’m not someone who the men find ridiculously attractive.

Isn’t it easy to pick ourselves apart? Give me a mirror and I’ll give you fifty reasons why a man would pass by me and not even take a second look. Today I was chatting with a friend over the power of outwardly appearance and the ridiculous stress our society puts on finding someone everyone else considers attractive. There is the key. You see to some of you my imperfections may appear rather unavoidable. You may look at me and suggest I buy a bigger t-shirt, or try wearing a different shade of foundation, or even buy a cheap box of hair dye to fix my roots or enhance my skin tone. The truth is that I care. I wish I could sit here and like so many incredible women say that I don’t but I do.

You know I used to think that my confidence level in God was marked by how much I did or didn’t care about other’s opinions? It is quite the ideal to think that the moment we reach ultimate confidence in Him all insecurities fade away. While it may be true in a moment, it is not necessarily a daily thing for me. I don’t wake up each morning and feel beautiful. I don’t feel not beautiful. I just don’t necessarily have an opinion of myself for the day just yet. I go to the mirror, pray a prayer of thanksgiving for having the body to be capable of getting out of bed this morning and then go to put on my makeup and fix my hair. It is at this time I am challenged. I am challenged to look at myself in the image of God. I often fail at this point.

When my eyes meet my eyes in the mirror I see something beautiful. I don’t think I am the most beautiful woman in the world, nor do I start dry heaving with disgust at what God has given me. It is not really an extreme of some sort but rather a time of choosing. I get to choose how I will approach the next twenty to thirty minutes of prepping and primping myself to what I would deem as average.

This weekend I spent the entire time feeling so encouraged by my girlfriends. I genuinely started to believe that I was beautiful, and didn’t even have to second guess it for the last three days. Then I come home and find out that the minute the woman who I so badly envied for the last few years worked her charm, the boy I liked for three months who I still can’t seem for the life of me to even have a genuine conversation with fell in love. It was heart breaking, but why?

It was heart breaking because I was unwanted. I think this is where I get so confused. I was unwanted which in turn would mean that I was rejected but it doesn’t necessarily make me rush to the gym to lose fifteen pounds to gain the attention of the man who rejected me. I don’t really want his attention I just want the affirmation that I’m not unwanted by someone else. There is this bittersweet understanding of mind that I came to about six years ago. “When one boy rejects you, you are just one step closer to the one who won’t.” I don’t know who in the heck told me that line, but it is so against my views on where my confidence should be stemming from.

I’m not going to sit here and wait for the man of my dreams to come along and affirm me. I don’t want to place my confidence in him because he will ultimately fail me. This constant believing that we are to just wait for someone to give us that affirmation needs to stop. I want to find my confidence in God alone. This also comes with the responsibility of remaining humble in knowing my confidence is from Him alone as well.

I’ve been rejected multiple times in my life. I will probably be rejected several more but that is the thing with rejection. Sometimes it is necessary in being exactly where we need to be at the point we are at. Praise God I was rejected by the boy from freshmen year. I am thankful that we did not date because if we did I can honestly say I wouldn’t be who I am now, nor writing down all the things I have to offer. I want to be attractive for one man and one man alone. This year has held within it some pretty brutal rejections. I don’t want to have to prove to someone that I am worth their risk, or time, or effort.

In the same respect, I don’t want to convince myself that someone is worth my risk, or time, or effort. I think sometimes we don’t see the flipside that rejection also has within it the fact that it hurts much less when we cut it off the sooner we know. I do believe that there has to be some sort of closure granted to those that we don’t feel right with. I don’t know if “right” is even the appropriate word but I’m suggesting that give others the same respect you would like. I want to be told when I’m not what someone wants because it gives me the release of not pouring myself into that relationship.

I’m not trying to be brutal here I am just saying that from all my experience in being rejected, I wish some of the men that had done it would have just been a little quicker in doing so. Yes, sometimes we genuinely don’t know until later on that this person is not necessarily the one we want to be with, but don’t prolong the hurt out of fear that maybe it will get better or maybe you will eventually start to like them in that way. Just say it. Be honest, be open, and be true to what you have to say.

The last piece of advice before I go to bed is that you don’t see this as me saying I’m too fat, too ugly, too whatever it may be. I’m saying that I don’t live in the way that it is that extreme. I don’t think I’m too anything but I also don’t have my confidence placed in the Lord. That is almost scarier because I think it causes my insecurities to go unnoticed until rejection strikes and suddenly I feel more worthless than a car with no engine. This is all such mumbo jumbo but I told you it’d be raw, and tonight this is what I’m dealing with.