13 Sep Why did God make me ugly.

The Black sheep of the Family is a term used to describe someone who has been branded and treated as an “outsider” or an outcast. Their the one in the Family who seems to go left when everyone else is going right. They look up when everyone is looking down. Instead of holding down a “respectable” career, they work a job until their career as an Artist or a Dancer finally takes off. The term “Black Sheep” is usually giving to them because they make decisions and do things contrary to rational or what most believe to be logical reasoning. But it is something they are coined based off their actions. If they would conform to what others deemed to be acceptable behavior, I suppose this moniker would be removed, then they would be “one of them”. The normal crowd.

I came across one of the most disheartening things I could have ever imagined. I came across a blog, where people were airing out their grievances. They way they expressed their situations, was some of the most honest writing I had ever read to date. They held nothing back. When one person shared something personal, the next person would share the same level of intimacy, or go even deeper. I read entry after entry as they expelled upon years of desperation, deep depression, bad health, and hopelessness. These people were at or nearing the end of their rope. Some declared if these didn’t turn around, suicide was their only recourse. Others declared committing suicide that very night. One thing that they all had in common, is that they were all confessing to be Christians. I don’t doubt the confession, but I cannot be sure of the authenticity of every single one of them.

Some of the things that were being said, I couldn’t imagine any Christian saying, but it is not for me to judge that. Pain will have you do and say things, you would have never imagined. Suffering brings the best and the worse out of people. There were people who literally BELIEVED that God hated them. There are people who literally believe God has it out for them. That he doesn’t love them. And he is tormenting their lives because he gets entertainment from it. The last sentence I could see being a more-so “tongue in cheek” comment, but the God hates me statements were very real. I had a serious reality Check. There are people, Christians, who are dealing with some very serious struggles. Serious enough that they have all been convinced, that they are in the cross-hairs of Jesus, and he has it out for them. Some said they just wish “God would forget about them”. If he just forgot about them, their troubles would disappear. They’ve been going to Church for years. Some confess they have been going to Church for 20+ years, and they have not been delivered from whatever it is they are warring against in their lives. Their grievances were not against life itself or the government. Their grievances were against God himself. He is the one responsible for the unrelenting torment in their lives. And if he is the one responsible, the only out is to commit suicide, or live a terrible life of meaningless torment and circumstances. The blog is called “Why does God hate me”, and their is no shortage of comments and replies. I came across this blog, because I was doing research on something closely related.

I was researching the term “Why did God make me Ugly”. That’s how I came across that blog. I was able to relate to some of things that were being said. When you are dealing with an issue, and have been for years, it can feel very much like God has forgotten you. That he has just turned a deaf ear to your problems. You can only do so much praying, and fasting, and reading before the feelings of “God does not care” sink in. This does not make you unbelieving. It makes you human. That is how we emotionally connect things. We pray, then we wait and see. If it doesn’t happen, then we do it again. Over and over until we get what we yearn for, or we don’t. A baby will cry itself to sleep for the bottle. When it awakes, it will cry all over again. We are not that different as Adults. We pray and we fast. And we wait. We Pray and we fast. And we wait. We Pray and we fast. And we wait. At some point, if the bottle is not giving to the baby, the baby will starve. At some point, if we do not receive from God what it is were desperately praying for, our Faith in that particular thing starts to die.

What Abraham desired more then anything from God was a son. He adored his Nephew Lot. Abraham treated Lot as if he was his own son. He was the son that Abraham had long for, but never had. His wife Sarah was barren. She was unable to have children. There was no Technology around during that time that could be used to inform a Doctor that Abraham’s wife was not able to have Children. This was determined after decades of them trying to have kids and being unsuccessful. The Bible also backs this by revealing to us that God had closed up Sarah’s womb. Think about how long Abraham and his wife had been praying to God and fasting and offering up sacrifices to God, in hopes of being able to produce offspring. Year after year. Decade after Decade. Time passed by. No offspring. What were Abraham and Sarah doing wrong that they could not they produce a Family? The Bible said they didn’t do anything wrong. The Apostles asked the same question about the blind man Jesus healed. In John 9:1-12 the apostles asked “Lord this man has been blind since birth, who sinned this man or his parents”? Jesus response in verse 3 is “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him”.

While this was God’s plan behind the scenes, the blind man was regulated to living his life without sight for the rest of his life. That is, he accepted the fact that this was his lot in life. Especially back then. There was no operating procedure to cure blindness. What hope did he have being born blind? The only hope he ever had of seeing would have to come by a miracle. And only God could do such things. Abraham was 99yrs of age, and Sarah was 90 when God came to him and said he would have a son through Sarah. Abraham was regulated to living his life without ever having a Son of his own with his wife. No heir to keep his bloodline going. You must understand that children in Abraham and Sarah’s time was looked at totally different, then how kids are looked at today. Children in the Old Testament was considered a great blessing, and proof that God had favor on you. Not only did they keep the bloodline going, they worked side by side with their Fathers on the Land. They were heirs to the land and property that the Father owned and provided protection against their enemies. You could see the climax of Abraham and Sarah’s frustration and loss of hope, when they finally agreed that he would have relations with “Haggar” Sarah’s handmade in order to produce a Child. According to the Bible, Abraham walked upright before God, so we can believe that it is true. Abraham was in right standing with God.

But God still did not give Abraham wanted he desired the most. A Son. God came at the most inopportune time. He was late. A woman being able to give birth while in her 90’s, and the Father being 100 years old, was humanely impossible! Which is why God chose that exact time to do it. It would take a miracle. And impossible miracles come from God. Remember what the disciples asked of Jesus about the blind man Jesus had healed? The response that Jesus gave them, would apply her as well. “Neither this man (Abraham) nor this women (Sarah), his parents, or her parents sinned“; but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in them“. The same verse John 9:3 could be applied her. I edited to tailor make how it would possibly read if used in Abraham and Sarah’s situation to drive home the point. When God does the impossible, no can deny it is of God. No one can take the credit for it. No one can get the glory. It is a miracle. And only God can produce such things. I did not come across the blog “why does God hate me” by accident. I was able to relate to some of the things being shared on that blog. It was not an accident that I stumbled upon it. See, I was dealing with my own secret struggle in Christ. The “why did God make me Ugly” was not a research statement I was doing for a paper. Rather, it was one I was doing for myself. A life long battle with low self esteem and low confidence had taking it’s toll on me. I have many times broken down emotionally, spiritually, physically, and psychologically over it. But this time was different. After years of praying and fasting and reading the Bible, I too got to a place were I was not finding any relief on what I was feeling on the inside, and what was happening to me in real life. This was not just about “feelings”. I had years of hard evidence to reinforce what I was experiencing. Never invalidate what a person is feeling. Feelings are fleeting, but at the moment they are very real. And some feelings can last for a lifetime. This time, unlike the last, I was at the end of my rope. I was hanging by threaded strings trying to desperately hold on. And when I couldn’t hold on any longer, the rope finally snapped! I could no longer rationalize or spiritualize what was happening to me. I pass the point of praying anymore about it. That grew ineffective. The same way Abraham was pass the point of praying any longer for a Son once Sarah was passed the child bearing years.

I was tired of the years of rejection that I suffered. I was tired of the abandonment. I was tired of the judgement. I was tired of the persecution. I was tired of the loneliness. I felt like the ugliest person in the World. And I had years of experience to back my grievances. If I was a prosecutor preparing to prosecute a case, I had the murder weapon, eye witness accounts, finger prints, and the body! My case was air tight. My struggles were real. From when I was a kid, to a Teen, to an Adult, I replayed several scenarios over and over again. There was no getting around it. I was unattractive. I’ve been told I was “handsome” before, but I knew what the majority of people seen when they looked at me. Attractive people can enter into relationships when they want and with whom they want. Unattractive people cannot do that. And that’s the ship I was sailing in my whole life. I never shared this with anyone. You are the first to ever here confession of my struggle. One of the reasons I never shared it is because when you open yourself up to people about things like this, the first thing they try to do is “dispel” what you’re saying. I understand it, because they love me. But that’s the kind of talk I didn’t want to hear. I also didn’t want to hear any suggestions. You think they would know that after suffering with this my whole life, that I’ve tried 100’s of things, and none of them worked. Or they worked very sporadically.

People never really hear your problems. They listen to you speak, but they don’t hear. As you talk, they listen, and start thinking of a solution. Again, I understand it, but I didn’t want to hear it. So I could relate to some of the things that were being said in that blog. Unless you’ve actually been in my shoes to experience the things I am writing about, the things that I have actually lived, you can not understand the emotional and psychological beating that I’ve been through. I too had prayed to God many times “what was wrong with me”, and “why did you make me this way”. There are some people in our society that are marginalized through no fault of their own. Your just born into something that was here before you and forced to deal with it. Fat people are marginalized in this country. People of color are marginalized in this country. Poor people are marginalized. Unattractive people are marginalized. And the list goes on and on. Somethings can be changed in attempts to limit the marginalization, but many things cannot. Their basically out of your control. I prayed to God for years on why I was created as I was. I questioned my looks. I questioned my features. I questioned my uneven skin tone. I questioned everything about me physically. I questioned the rejection I suffered throughout the years starting since I was a kid. Which followed me all the way throughout Adult hood. I question why I suffered Abandonment like I did. Why I suffered judgment like I did. The disapproving looks I experienced over the course of my life that no matter what I did, seemed to not slow down. Being told blatantly to my face that I was ugly. As bluntly as Lucy called Charlie Brown a “block head” without a shred of remorse. I experienced all these things, but this time I too was done.

Paul says in the New Testament, that while suffering the beatings and the imprisonments, there was a point where he and the other disciples despaired even of life itself. God, I don’t care if I wake up in the morning! My life has come down to being beaten and shackled. I was at that place. I prayed to God many times to take my life in the night. I was tired of it all. I had nothing left to give or try to make my situation better. I quit. If this thing is real, and if you are real, please let me meet the Lord in the sky. Please take my life tonight. I submit. I just can’t carry on any longer. I despair of my life!

I never attempted suicide, but ending my life had crossed my mind many times over. Though I never had the courage. What I was really asking for was relief. I wanted the pain to stop. The pain of rejection. The pain of loneliness. The pain of feeling lonely. And when I read that blog, I saw people who were hurting as much as me. And yet there was something in me that wanted to help them. My despair took a back seat to what they were expressing and going through. But I had no way to minister to them. I was dying on inside myself with my own struggles. I had no wisdom to share. I thought of Job, and the intense pressure he was under when God allowed Satan to strip him of everything. Many of these people were having a “wilderness” experience. A Job experience. When everything you hold or held dear, has either been stripped away or is being taking from you. Or maybe their “Son” prayer was never answered after decades of praying and tears. I use the word “Son” symbolically here. Substitute it what it is you desire most in your life. Could be a Spouse. A Family. Your own church building, etc. I did not know how to minister to them because I didn’t know how to minister to myself. I could not tell them it would be alright, and that God would turn it around. It clearly hadn’t turned around. And like me, I know most of those people were praying and fasting. Going to Church and reading their Bibles. Praying through many of tears. I was not going to offer up some hopeful speech in attempt to do what even the scriptures were unable to do anymore, and that’s provide comfort to their souls and to their hearts and in their Spirits.

I laid in my bed. I cried out to the Lord in total darkness, in the middle of the night. And I asked him, “why did you make me ugly”. I read earlier that day, the book of Isaiah 52:1-3 which is a scripture I was very familiar with over the years. A verse that supports what Chris said in John 15:16. That Jesus Christ chose us. We did not not choose him. Because we would not have been drawn to him due to his lack of beauty. Which is the things the world values. The things that the flesh desire. The fact that Jesus chose us should instill confidence in all of us. In me. But it’s hard to have confidence and esteem in yourself even when you understand that scripture, because once the book closes, you have to go back outside into the World, where you will experience very real things that are contrary to that scripture.. But as I laid in my bed in complete silence, with just my air purifier blowing in the background, the Lord pointed out something else to me. After reading the Isaiah 53:1-3 scripture over and over he pointed out something that I hadn’t noticed before. In all my readings I just did not see it. “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him. 3He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not”

I has asked God for years why he had made me to suffer the experiences I had endured and went through. And continue too. Why did he make me unattractive. The Lord revealed to me he created me perfectly. He created me in the image of his “Son”, so that I too could be subjected to the suffering that Jesus had endured. That I too could experience the rejection, the despising looks, the judgement, the grief and the sorrows just as he did; So I could be a partaker in that suffering in the Lord. He had made me perfectly. Perfectly to suffer for his names sake in the manner that Isaiah 53:2-3 had described. When the Lord revealed this to me, a stream of tears came crashing down my face.

My sorrow for so many years had melted away. My low-self esteem, my lack of confidence, my poor self-image of myself due to years of rejections and the such, was lifted. My tears, were tears of Joy. The Lord had destroyed a chain that has been around my neck my whole life. If you remember in the book of Acts, how the Apostles were over-joyed after being beating by the Sanhedrin and released. Over-joyed that they were found worthy to suffer for his name sake. I found myself in the same place. I raised my hands to the sky while lying flat on my back. And I said “Oh God, thank you for the rejection”; “Thank you for the abandonment”; “Thank you for those who despised me before I even opened my mouth God”; “Thank you for the unfair judgement that I received from others”; “Thank you for letting me be despised”; “Thank you for allowing me to partake and share in the suffering of Jesus as outlined in Isaiah 53:2-3”. I am in a very blessed and unique position. We will all suffer for Christ, but I don’t believe all of our suffering will be in the same manner. I do not have a “look” that is acceptable to the World. My look is despised. It is ordinary. It is like Jesus. I have no beauty or majesty to attract anyone. I am a dry root. There is nothing desirable in my appearance. What was once my curse for years, has become my strength. It has become my blessing. Now when I’m rejected, I just smile on the inside. Now when I’m despise, judged and abandoned, it just reinforces the bond that exist in me in Christ. This is my cross to bare. That I suffer in Christ in the manner outlined in Isaiah. By the Grace of God, I will carry it to the end, being despised all the way!

When my Mother passed, it was mainly my Sister and myself that looked after her and took care of her. We are two of six total siblings. But it was her and I God had task with looking after my Mother. My Mother made me “power of attorney” over her medical and financial affairs. That’s how much she trusted in me! It was very hard the last few years of her life. And at times it was very inconvenient as you could imagine. I worked overnights at the time. I would work from 11:30 pm to after 8:00am in the morning. I would leave work and take her to a Dr. Appointment at 10:00am. Afterwards I would pick up medicine for her. Make a couple other stops, and I would not get home until after 1:00pm in the afternoon. So yes, there were times it was very inconvenient. But you know what? When the Lord took my Mother, I looked back on her last years on this Earth, and I THANKED GOD that he chose me to help take care of her. That created an even closer bond in me and my Mother that could not be broken. Not only was she my Mom, but during those years, she became my Friend. And God blessed me with taking care of her. You never get those times back. I did not see it like that until she passed away. I am now looking at my life, and with my limited view, I thank God that he chose to create me this way, so I could share this suffering in the Lord. When I go to be with the Lord, I suspect I will look back and smile with great Joy that I was created in his likeness as described in Isaiah 53.

Now I can go back to that Blog, and minister to those who are in pain and suffering similarly or in ways I can’t begin to imagine. I will not sell them a story. I will not tell them that it will end. I will tell them the truth. God is a God of purpose. He does not allow affliction, persecutions, rejections, and every other kind of trial and tribulation into our lives for sport. He does not allow these things for his entertainment. He is using your life for a greater purpose. Do not despise the suffering any longer. It is there. He has allowed it. You’ve prayed yet it remains. He is allowing it.

By a show of hands “who wants to be like Jesus”. If you ask that question in a crowded room or church or cathedral every hand will go up. But who wants to endure what it takes to be like Jesus? Are you ready to be rejected like Jesus? Are you ready to be despised by men like Jesus? Are you ready for people to hide their faces from you like Jesus? Are you ready to be wrongly judged and accused like Jesus? Are you ready to have friends and Family members abandoned you like Jesus? Are you ready to be persecuted like Jesus? That’s what it’s like to be like Jesus. If you want to be like Jesus, this is what it takes.

Now I am going to go back to that blog. And I’m going to minister to those who are trapped in a chamber of sorrows. I don’t know if anyone will listen. But I will write what the Lord has put on my heart. And pray that someone will be set free from the captivity of pain, and the lie that has been permeating in their hearts for a long time now. Paul says “I plant, Apollo waters, God gives the increase”.

I will plant the seed. I will water it with responses. God is responsible for the increase. I hope the words are accepted, because in many ways I am just like them. If you’ve been rejected, despised, Judged, abandoned, persecuted, and called ugly. Then I am you….