"Do you see her? That girl, the one with the long blonde hair in a ponytail? That's who I am. That's what I look like." I was playing pretend with my sister, and of course I wanted to look different. Short and thin with mousey brown hair and enormous pink glasses wasn't who I wanted to be - in real life, or pretend. Most days I wanted to be tall, thin, and blonde, with my hair pulled back into a bouncy ponytail or a long braid. Sometimes I would even go the extra mile and put a pair of pantyhose on my head to get the desired effect of long hair!
For whatever reason, I thought that if I looked different, I was different. As silly as it sounds, pantyhose on my head made me stand taller, be more bold, and act more confident. When the game ended I went back to being regular old Holly, shy and quiet, afraid of making mistakes.
Not a lot has changed since those days.
Some days I'm happy with who I am: A wife and mother, writer and business owner. I have a loving husband and two amazing children. I'm happy with who I am and who where I am.
But then I see Amy, and nothing in my world seems good enough.
I'm not good enough.
* * *
See, Amy is everything I'm not.
She has three children under the age of five, but somehow she never looks less than amazing. Her Pinterest boards are full of hairstyles and outfit combinations she clearly has the time to try. Her girls are always dressed beautifully – and fashionably! - with their soft, untangled curls pulled back into perfect, complicated braids. Her son doesn’t have any unruly cowlicks or dirt under his fingernails. Her children are always spotless and unwrinkled, and they are unfailingly polite.
Amy is never harried, never frantic, and never out of breath.
She's a stay at home mom just like me, but she runs a direct from home sales business that makes enough money for her and her husband to escape on tropical vacations a couple of times each year.
And she homeschools.
* * *
On the outside, Amy looks like she has it all, and she has it all together - but does she really?
Do any of us?
Or are we all just wearing pantyhose on our heads, trying to be something we're not?
* * *
Sometimes I think that if I could be anyone in the entire world, I would be Amy.
But God didn't make me Amy, he made me me.
Sometimes I wonder why he made me the way he did. Why do I have to be so short? Why doesn’t my hair cooperate when I try anything other than a simple ponytail? Why can’t I be more stylish? More outgoing? More easygoing? More confident?
Why can’t I be anybody but me?
Then I remember that God made “all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13, NLT) He made me short and thin, he made my mousey brown hair, he made the eyes that require enormous glasses. He created me, he knows me – and all of my insecurities.
I am a daughter of the King, and that is enough.
I am enough.
And so are you.