By An Hui, Myanmar Having an Inferiority Complex About My Plain Appearance I used to be a very inferior girl. Whenever I saw beautiful and elegant girls on TV or in magazines, I was consumed with envy. Then, looking at myself in the mirror: Ordinary appearance, normal figure, and yellowish teeth, all these caused the sense of inferiority to creep up on me. The Cruelty of Reality Made Me Unwilling to Be Mediocre At school, wherever beautiful girls went, they would become the center of attention. Standing together with them showed even more my mediocrity, and sometimes my classmates laughed at my teeth. This hurt me and brought about feelings of inferiority. I thought: “In this age where people value a good-looking face, could it be that those with average looks are meant to be laughed at?” I secretly swore an oath to myself: When I earned money, I would dress up beautifully. The reality, however, gave me another heavy blow. After entering society, I found several good jobs, but failed to be employed due to my plain appearance, and so I could only get an ordinary job. I felt that it was too unfair and materialistic in the world, just like the popular saying, “A man makes a living through his skills, while a woman with her looks.” I couldn’t change the world, so I had to change myself. As people say, “Fine clothes make the man,” and “There’s no ugly woman but the lazy one.” Thus, in the following days, as long as I got my salary, I would be impatient to buy clothes and cosmetics online. I would also purchase the beautiful clothes I saw which women around me wore and clothes in new styles. Whenever looking at myself in various beautiful clothes in the mirror, I felt I became pretty, and my heart was brimming with pleasure. Frustrated Again by Failing to Become Beautiful Just when I felt I was becoming pretty day by day, freckles silently appeared on my clean face. During that period, upon seeing me, my colleagues asked me in surprise, as if discovering a new continent, “Are you married? Do you have a child?” After knowing the answer was no, they all found it hard to believe. Seeing their astonished expressions, I really wanted to find a place to hide away. Since then, freckles became my greatest enemy. In order to remove freckles, I started to search online for related products. As long as learning of some effective products, no matter how expensive they were, I would prefer to borrow money from my sister to buy them. As expected, for the first few months, my freckles started to fade away. This brought me an indescribable feeling of happiness. At that time, I thought, “No matter how much money I spend, as long as I can get my clean, fair face back, then it will be worth it.” But good times don’t last long. After a while, my freckles reappeared and grew darker than before. This failure in becoming beautiful caused me great pain, and I felt too ashamed to see anyone. Since then, at work I tried my best to avoid the crowd, and I daren’t look directly at others, fearing that they might ask me why there were so many freckles on my face. To cover the freckles, I began to use more cosmetics. Every time before going out, I would spend over an hour making myself up; while at work, I would often go to the restroom to fix my face, lest others see my freckles. Each time that I took off my makeup and saw my freckled face in the mirror, I couldn’t help but complain: Why do I still look like an ugly duckling no matter how great the effort? Could it be that I am unable to hold my head up high like this all my life? The more I thought about it, the more upset I got, and my heart felt extremely depressed. Recognizing God’s Sovereignty, Getting Released in My Heart Later, my friend preached the kingdom gospel of Almighty God to me. After going to church, I found that the church was completely different from society. When brothers and sisters got together, all they fellowshiped was God’s words, and everything they talked about was related to the truth, such as how to know their own corrupt dispositions, how to be an honest person, how to live out a meaningful life, etc. Furthermore, they didn’t look up to or belittle anyone based on their clothes, makeup, and appearance. Instead, they treated others equally, and whoever had difficulties, they would help them with a loving heart. In the church, I felt warmth and a kind of relaxation which I had never had before. Afterward, I saw these words from God, “Where a person is born, what family he or she is born into, one’s gender, appearance, and time of birth: these are the details of the first juncture of a person’s life.” “No one has any choice about these parts in this juncture; they are all predestined long in advance by the Creator. They are not influenced by the external environment in any way, and no manmade factors can change these facts that the Creator has predetermined.” After reading God’s words, I came to understand that my appearance and the family I was born into were both predestined by God. God is righteous, and His arrangements are always good. Though I was not beautiful, God didn’t cold-shoulder me. He allowed me to have the fortune to accept His kingdom gospel and hear His words, and gave me the chance to pursue the truth, cast off my corruption, live out the likeness of a real man, and attain God’s salvation. Wasn’t this God’s elevation and grace? Coming to this realization, I felt so lucky, was willing to obey God’s orchestrations and arrangements, and no longer complained about the situation. At that moment, my long-depressed heart was finally…