We as women tend to have major struggles with our physical beings, our bodies. We struggle with not looking perfect or having the perfect personality. We judge ourselves heavily against what we think are perfect people.

 I know growing up, there was an older girl in my neighborhood whose name was Jill. She was 4 years older than me, but my parents thought she was great. She was kind and helpful and they even used a name that she liked to name my baby brother ~ Shane.

 I thought she was pretty; blonde hair that was thick and long; popular, always had a date for the important things like homecoming and prom; and smart to boot!!! I wanted to be like her! She was the ideal in my eyes.

 But sadly as I grew, I was curvy; she had a great figure for a bikini, breasts but not too large. Whereas, I ended up with a chest two-cup sizes larger, rounded hips and saddlebag thighs!

 Jill had nice straight thighs and just nice soft hips without all the extra curve. Oh, how I had wanted to be like her, but it wasn’t meant to be. Jill was Jill and I was Kelly. And the differences went on.

 My hair was light blonde until puberty, then I was a dark, mousy blonde. My hair was much thinner than Jill’s. My face broke out horribly as a teen, I had zits all over my face, she had an occasional blemish. She started her cycle at age 14, I started the week after I turned twelve.

 I developed so young that my mother bought me padded bras in 4th grade and Jill waited with training bras for years. My parents have a picture of me when I was in the 4th or 5th grade and I was completely curvy.

 You better believe I struggled with my looks. And then my personality! I was not kind and compassionate, given to being overly oozy. I tended to be straight forward, right to the point and didn’t mince words. Not that I was mean, I was direct, big difference. My dad was always telling me that I shouldn’t speak. And I got plenty of backhands!

 It didn’t help that Jill had favor with both my parents and I felt I had none. I felt like a total reject.

 Then on top of it all, my mother let me know one day that I was an ‘accident.’ Not that she didn’t love me, but she was going to establish her career as a nurse for their first 5 years of marriage, but because my Dad was catholic, she couldn’t use birth control and, well, opps, here’s Kelly!

 She never looked on me as a blessing, but a curse; someone that interfered with her plans. I don’t believe that my mother ever knew how much she hurt me by saying these things. I believe that she was trying to get me to see that she felt I should wait to have children and start my career first. But I still felt rejected by her because of this.

 But you see, I failed miserable in my mother’s eyes. At he age of 20, I found myself engaged to John and pregnant with our first child. At one point I considered an abortion because it was an option according to the world. But after crying for 3 days, my answer was ‘no’ and even though this child was not my choice in timing, I would never look upon him as something to be dealt with. In other words, he was going to be a blessing instead of a curse. Down deep, I knew, God did not make mistakes or accidents and so this is what my heart grasped onto.

 When I became a Christian, God though His Word and others started showing me that He thought I was special and that He created me uniquely.