Beauty

If you've been led to believe you are not beautiful, put away what you have been told!  Turn that tape OFF!  This is not to encourage vanity, but rather to appreciate our Creator's perspective.  I grew up with an inferiority complex that was larger than life.  My parents did the best they could, but they were just kids themselves when I came along, so . . . Not only did they lack the maturity in parenting skills, but the fact that I was a truly odd duck, didn't help.  By the age of three, I remember very clearly, praying, asking G-d to make me invisible.  The self-consciousness expanded exponentially, once I realized the answer to that prayer was, "No."

I was four years old in this picture, and I'd already been given the concept that I was overweight.  I did not have a similar pigment to any other child I knew, and I was a tall kid who rarely looked up.  Then there were all the comments I overheard, made by family members regarding my being left-handed.  I was so nervous about doing something wrong, I didn't even drop the flower petals at this wedding.  I'm sure you can imagine what ensued from there.  Hearing the sniggers in the crowd, I naturally assumed they were laughing AT me.  I stood motionless, or as best I could for all the photos that followed, and of all things, I had to stand in the front, right in front, of the new couple . . . It would be 50 years before I would be comfortable enough to sit in front of a camera.  Oh, I'm in plenty of pictures, but it's very clear, it's not my choice to be in front of the camera.  If I was looking at the camera, it always captured my "self-conscious need to flee."   If the photo was a candid shot, which many were, I had a ridiculous expression, or my underwear was showing, or something that didn't really need to be captured for time in memorial.  When I saw the camera come out, I literally looked for the exit.

I tried to come out of my shell for a time in my late teens and early twenties, but that was a catastrophe, a complete and utter catastrophe.  It was then that I got the idea to abuse myself with caffeine, nicotine, and herbal stimulants.  I became unnaturally thin and self-deprecating humor became my style.  I felt if I was putting myself down, I was at least beating everyone else to the punch.  I still couldn't see who our Creator had made me to be and even worse than that, I was disrespecting Him, by rejecting the way He'd made me.  It was as if I was judging G-d, Himself.  Yet, He still loved me.  When I did come to Him at the age of 36, the victory over this issue didn't happen instantly.  It would be nearly two more decades before I would include a photo of myself.

I loved writing, and I didn't need my image on a book to get the message out.  My first webpage went live in 2001, then in 2006 there was EinGedi.us.  Even when I moved and established the Land of Goshen, I never considered including my photograph.  I had a radio show for some time, and that was perfect.  I could get the message out, speak with people, and remain unseen.  When my friend offered to create a logo and illustrate the home page, he insisted that he add a photo of me.  Reluctantly, I finally agreed, but asked him if he could draw an image rather than use a photograph.  It was in seeing my caricature, that I finally accepted me.  In seeing everything I'd always been self-conscious about, exaggerated . . . something just clicked in my perspective.  Self-consciousness is a convoluted form of vanity that serves no one.  

YHWH doesn't create mistakes and He doesn't make anything or anyone ugly, and I've included a video of a young man who happens to agree with me.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151596857991831&set=vb.110153655727666&type=2&theater