Acne. It’s annoying, it’s painful and it can make you feel like the most unattractive person on the planet. Mine started when I was still in primary school and it remained a constant problem all throughout my teens. I honestly don’t even remember what my skin looked like without acne or the really bad scarring that came along with it. It’s often said that the majority of people will get spots at some point as a teenager, but when I was in high school, I felt like the only one who had them. I don’t really remember any of my friends getting severe acne like mine and it was really difficult to deal with at times. I battled with low self-esteem growing up and my acne represented yet another thing to hate about myself.
I’m now in my 20s and hoped that I would have overcome my skin troubles by this time in my life. But nope, my acne seems to have decided to stick around for the long run. The reason why I wanted to write this post wasn’t because I’ve found a magical cure to deal with my bad skin. If I’m being completely transparent, I still get irritated by it, I sometimes feel that people are staring at me because of it and if I had a choice, it would all be gone in a heartbeat. Despite the fact that I don’t love having spots, I definitely know that my feelings towards them have changed.
As a teenager, having bad skin really used to get me down, as I’m sure it must do for many of you guys. But as I got older and my faith in Christ grew stronger, I made more of a conscious effort to remind myself that I am more than my appearance. I believe that I am smart, caring, loving and kind and not a single one of these traits has anything to do with what I look like. I want to say that YOU are all those things I mentioned and so much more! Not only does Psalm 139 say that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but 1 Samuel 16 makes it clear that although people may judge you by your outward appearance, although they might make passing comments, although people may look at you funny or feel sorry for you because your skin isn’t the greatest, our heavenly Father looks at the heart and that is all that matters.
I wanted to leave you with some things to keep in mind that I hope will be of some encouragement:
- You’re not alone-although it may feel far from it, there are so so so many people struggling with acne. We’re in this together!
- There may be some things you can do to help- keeping your skin nice and clean, identifying any foods that might trigger your acne (sugar seems to affect mine which kinda sucks as I really love sweets) and monitoring your stress levels might help to keep your breakouts under control.
- You are beautiful! Having acne doesn’t take away from how incredible and amazing and utterly gorgeous you are. Yes, sometimes it can feel like your acne is the only thing you see, but it’s important to try and look past that and begin to identify things about yourself that make you special.
