Who are we

“I can live for two months on a good compliment”

I must have been about 12 years old when I got my first compliment, or at least the first one I can remember. Where else should it come from but my mom? I grew up in a family with 3 other siblings. It was fun most days; we could play teenage mutant ninja turtles and not be short any turtles. With so many mouths to feed, clothing was more a "wear what’s going" option, rather than a label option. I remember two clothes shopping trips; the first one was to MR PRICE (it has since become much more acceptable to wear clothes from there now, perhaps after our modelling of it). Anyway, they had a range of cloths called Powerhouse, which was basically an overgrown bulldog with arms and legs doing gym stuff. Of course, with such a great idea for clothing came the great price; we landed up getting matching green and grey tracksuits. Funny, though, the place I got most mocked for my sleek gym attire was youth group and namely from the leaders who had this rock star persona that everyone who was deemed worthy aspired too; this just added to my inner turmoil about being good enough for people, especially the holier-than-thou church folk.

The second shopping excursion was purely a gift from above. We were all out grocery shopping one day when we came across this table in the middle of the shop sky high with t-shirts. The cost was literally a few rands. My dad is the type of guy who loves to find deals and bargains; I am very much my father’s child. So he went mad and bought about 30 shirts for us. The problem was they were all white, with American football teams on the front and fitted the exact opposite of Egyptian cotton. Needless to say, I wore what looked to be the same top for the next 5 years of my life. Due to it being such a great deal, my parents even bought them going up in sizes so we would be okay for the next while. Looking back I am thankful for the deal and the love of my parents. I don’t wish the clothes where different but rather that people would have responded differently too them. Maybe I am just too idealistic in my approach to humanity, but hope is all we have sometimes. My hope and dream is that we will one day have a world in which appearance doesn’t matter, especially in the church. I have a friend who is on a year of your life program through this church. The church is doing such an amazing job in the community and really such a Christian witness and presence. However, my friend was told that in order for people to take him seriously he would need to look the part. Some random in the church actually booked him a hair appointment and said if he cuts his hair they would buy him some clothes too. While this makes me laugh out loud it also breaks my heart. We live in a world with all types of people, who cares what we look like? Its fine to dress nice and have a neat hair cut if that is what you want to do. But don’t enforce that on someone and don’t link appearance with acceptance; especially not in church.

Back to my compliment: I found a pair of my dad’s old jeans, they were a light, almost white blue, with a high waist and tight around my buttocks area! They felt very uncomfortable, but when I showed my mom she said these exact words: “It makes your bum look nice.” They instantly became my favourite pants, even if nobody else liked them.

People love compliments, but mostly superficial compliments. "You look nice today", or "I love that dress!" Boys don’t really like to be complimented on their dresses, but you get the point!

It’s the compliments that reflect on our character that we find hard to accept; it almost makes us feel uneasy! I have sat in many a team building exercise where people go around and encourage and say positive stuff about the other people in the room. To me, this always seems to take forever; more because of the awkwardness of everyone. When we hear positive things about us we struggle to accept them because we know the real us, we know the true us that tries to sleep at night, rather than this great person everyone is talking about. Character compliments reflect how people see us, not how we see ourselves. Perhaps that is the problem.

Self-image is a big thing to most people; we inherently don’t feel good enough about who we are, we wish we could change things about us, where we were born, and even sometimes our parents. Society has a unique way of putting people down in order to elevate themselves. The only way we can feel better is to rip off our friends, but truthfully they feel the same as we do inside, so it’s a vicious circle that never seems to end. If we are honest we seem to have a desire in us that wants us to be better than others. Our parents push us to be the best we can be in sports and academics, teaches reward the smarter kids with treats, it seems all of society push to separate us into classes. The thing is though there is nothing wrong with someone being better than you at something or smarter. That is part of being an individual and how God made you for his plan and purpose on earth. However because our abilities are different does not make us any less or any more important. We are all equals at heart. God is calling us to equality. This creates a type of battle within us that makes us develop a head strong Christianity that is apart form our hearts and what God is requiring of us.