Scarlet Hiltibidal - He Numbered the Pores on My Face

Copyright 2019 by Scarlet Hiltibidal

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-5359-3763-4

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Cover art and lettering by Kayla Stark.

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.83

Subject Heading: CHRISTIAN LIFE / GIRLS / PERSONAL APPEARANCE

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible, Copyright 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible and CSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Also used: New International Version ( niv ), copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Also used: English Standard Version ( esv ), Text Edition: 2016. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Also used: King James Version ( kjv ), public domain.

Disclaimer: All names have been changed, because no thirty-three-year-old man needs to be called out in a book for telling me my hair looked like it got run over by a lawn mower twenty years ago. I forgive you, Kent. I fully forgive you.

Introduction

I used to stare at my own face in the mirror for fun.

I would lock my tween-age self in the bathroom of our two-story condo in Burbank, sit on top of the bathroom sink, and get as close as I could to the mirror, studying each pore as if I had to have their precise layout memorized by the next day. Id sit, and Id study, and Id whisper. Softly, as I perused my pores, I would recite the speech I was going to give my crush when he finally said, Scarlet... I love you, and I always have.

I imagined that when he told me that, on our last day of seventh grade, under a tree with just the right number of leaves to let in a romantically speckled amount of sunlight, I would be wearing a flower crown and a diamond anklet and a calmly radiant smile, like Mona Lisa. My response would be something like, I love you too. Ive loved you since the moment I saw you drawing UFOs on the paper bag cover of your earth science book in Ms. Changs class. Also, you have handsome pores.

I practiced that speech, but I never got to deliver it.

My mirror-proximity problem had a lot to do with the fact that I grew up with a very blonde, very blue-eyed, and quite famous mother. She got a lot of positive attention everywhere we went. I looked nothing like her. But something in me said that if only I looked like my beautiful, fawned-over mom, I would be happy. Get it together, Scarlet. Be beautiful.

I tried. At twelve, I wasnt allowed to dye my hair yet, so I squeezed lemons onto it and sat outside in direct sunlight. Id read in Seventeen magazine that lemon juice made hair turn blonde. I remember desperately sprinting indoors to see if I was blonde and beautiful and ready to be famous. I wasnt. I was just weirdly sunburned. Those were brutal years of daily battles. No matter how many lemons I crushed, no matter how many pores I pondered, no matter how many articles I read, I pretty much always looked like this.

By the way, when I texted my sister, asking if she could track down a photo of me during my awkward stage, that photo came through in a matter of seconds, as if she already had it set as her home screen or something.

Anyway, I guess Im an adult now? Im the age I thought was old when I was a teenager. But Im wearing a romper right now. Does that mean Im still young? I say the answer is yes.

Okay, so why is this oldish lady writing a book about her younger days? Well, because I have daughters who will check their pores soon. And Im watching teen girls all around me growing up and growing scared and wondering if they are enough.

I see them. I recognize the look in their eyes and the hopes in their hearts.

I look around and I see it. My oldest daughter is pretty confident, and shes suffered no shortage of compliments in her eight years. But even as young as four, when her baby sister was born, I could already see the twinge of hurt wash over her face when people complimented her little sisters bright-blue eyes. I could already see the wheels turning as she tried to decipher the meaning behind her brown eyes, as she listened to a convincing internal voice, for maybe the first time in her life, whispering, Youre not as beautiful as you should be. Youre not as special as you could be.

I dont want these girlsthis beautiful, bubbly generation of young womento waste years trying to look different, trying to be adored by the wrong people, and trying to accomplish stuff that looks like everything but feels like nothing. Instead, theres a real freedom and deep peace already sitting there from Jesus. That freedom eluded me when I was a teen. Its something Im just now starting to grasp, thirty-plus years into this life.

My adopted daughter, Joy, was born without ears. Shes only five, but shes starting to notice the sparkles in the ears of girls around her. She picks earrings out of my jewelry dish and holds them up to her head. Then she slips on a twenty-nine-cent necklace, smiles into the mirror, and signs beautiful to herself. Even at five, she longs to be admired.

But no matter how many times I tell my oldest that I want to eat her beautiful brown eyes up like milk chocolate kisses, or how many times I show Joy that a sparkly necklace is beautiful, just like a sparkly earring, their deceitful little hearts arent going to be able to ignore the crushing messages the whole wide world will offer them.

Youre not enough unless youre this...

You cant be happy unless you buy this/wear this/have this/look like this...

If you cant do this, you might as well give up now...

Thats a problem. Thats an everyday, every-girl, soul-level problem.

So, what can help? What can fix it?

Certainly not me.

I cant save any of you from being broken humans. From chasing the wrong things. From believing lies. From having broken hearts that betray. From falling and crying and hurting. I wish I could. I look at my daughters and the teen girls at my church and the teens I pass at Target, and I wish I could force hope into female hearts. I cant.

But I can share what helped me. What made me finally settled and joyful and more hopeful than not. I (almost) never stare at my pores anymore. And its not because I fixed all my problems. Its not because my pores have magically improved over the past twenty years.

Listen: Im still not pretty enough, or accomplished enough, or popular enough for my heart to be happy. And I dont think Ive ever really found self-esteem. Peace doesnt come because I learned to love myself. There are plenty of reasons not to love me. But you know what?

I am loved.

Not by a guy with relatively little acne. Not by friends who think Im smart or fun or (fill in the blank). Not even by myself. Those loves are weak loves. Like many have said before me, I am loved, as are you, by the One who said that you are so broken that someone had to die for you, but you are so treasured that He did.

We are loved by Jesus, the One who made us, the One who rescued us, the One who wants to be with us forever. When we understand who we already areforgiven and loved daughters of Godbecause of what Jesus already did on the cross, who we havent dated and what we havent done are insignificant.