Silence Is Not Always Golden

A story of how I painfully learnt to value my self-worth

For as long as I could remember, I have always been the sort of person that did not like trouble. Never have, never will. I always found a way to avoid arguments with people, either by walking away from the situation or just smiling until the person becomes frustrated and leaves.

But I never knew the toll this would have on me in the long run. When I went to the university, I met girls from different backgrounds. The fact that I was this 'ajebutter' babe with light skin from a well-to-do home made some of them feel intimidated (even though I didn’t understand this at the time).

Some of the roommates I had in my first year were just the worst, to say the least. I couldn’t study effectively due to distractions from them playing around and they boycotted me most times from conversations in the room. One of them was exceptionally rude and always found one way or another to make insulting remarks at my body, especially my legs(which she found to be fat). I never fought back, because I never wanted to pick a quarrel. I felt that being the bigger person was to be emotionally strong — and silent.

Years went by, roommates changed and eventually, I graduated from the university. I later had a casual conversation with a friend and university days came up. Randomly, I asked her what she liked and didn’t like about me. She said she loved everything about me, except the fact that I lacked confidence in myself.

This really took me aback, because I always felt that being quiet also meant being strong as well. The conversation that day made me to make a huge re-evaluation on myself to ask certain questions. The greatest one that day was “what does confidence really mean?"

Confidence, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is “the quality of being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans, or the future”.

All my life, even though I always took the 'higher ground' but I was never really certain of my abilities or had explicit trust in people. I was always anxious of the future so badly, that most times, I cancelled my plans even before I started them, just because I felt I would fail.

But, now I knew I had confidence issues. What did I do about it?

The answer is very simple. The Word of God did it.

Psalm 139:14 of the Amplified Version Bible says, “I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.”

This helped me to get rid of any insecurities about my body, because I mean, I was fearfully and wonderfully made right? God, the creator of the big and immeasurable universe, created lil’ old me and fashioned me perfectly in His own image and after His own likeness. That statement, on its own, was so enlightening because I was already perfect enough. No need to start wondering if I have fat legs or if I was too chubby. I was already created to be fearfully and wonderfully made, after all!!

When I realized this, God knows that I was on levels above cloud nine. I could look myself proudly and say that anyone who insults me, insults the Creator because God made me — fearfully and wonderfully!

So the next time you feel down from someone’s rude comments about your body, or your looks or even mannerisms, just know that you are the perfect artwork of God, His Masterpiece. And a masterpiece can never, ever be nothing else but beautiful.