The Perfect Fit

   While out shopping this weekend I came across the Dr Seuss book "Are You My Mother?". The story is about a bird who's mother left it to find food before it hatched. Once the baby bird hatches it goes on a quest to find its mother. He goes to several different animals asking "are you my mother?", each time being rejected. In the end, the happy ending comes when the baby bird is reunited with his mom. The one that created him and in whom he could identify with.
   I can imagine how that bird must have felt, seeking and searching for himself, trying to find his identity in others. I don't have to think too hard to know what its like to be young and with out your mother. I don't have to imagine how that felt because I have been there. However that is not where my focus lies in this post. I want to focus on the rejection that he must have felt every time that he went to an animal hoping and wishing to find acceptance only to be rejected.
  Though I didn't spend my younger years looking for my mother, I did spend many years searching for acceptance yet often ended up like the bird in our story.....still searching! I have tried to find acceptance from friends, in relationships, classmates, even in church and have often come up empty and disappointed. What a feeling! You do all that you know to do, people please, and say all of the right things, yet, at the end of the day you still end up feeling alone and disappointed. To experience this once is hard enough. But imagine time after time, relationship after relationship with the same outcome.
   For as long as I can remember, I have wrestled with rejection. I have always felt that nothing that I do is enough. Even as the captain of the cheerleading team in high school, I always felt that nothing that I would do was good enough for people to like me, let alone love me. I have found myself compromising things that I believed and doing things that I wouldn't normally do. I have given what I didn't have. I distinctly remember because I was always made fun of for my proper speech, I taught myself to speak "Ebonics" just to fit in with my peers.
  In recent years, I have learned that often the greatest rejection that I have experienced is the rejection of myself. I have found that I have often rejected the greatness that rests within me. I have rejected the many gifts and talents that rest within me. I have thought that I'm not good enough to accomplish great things. This attitude has affected the way that I interact with others, and even the way that I approach different tasks and assignments. I have grown to fear and at times sabotage my own success.
  It is the rejection of ME that has often lead to great hurt and pain at the hands of others. This is not to say that other people are not responsible for their actions, however looking back I can see the part that I played. I allowed myself to become someone that I was never created to be and at the end of the day it still wasn't enough. What I was searching for was a place to belong. I was trying to find my perfect fit.
   Recently, I have began to accept the fact that I have been different from birth by God's divine design. I am learning that the many unique abilities and desires that I have are a blessing not a  curse. I am realizing by not accepting who I am, I am not only doing myself a disservice but also those around me. Before the foundation of the world we were each created to accomplish a specific purpose. We were given a unique set of gifts and talents. You owe it to yourself to be great. Be great at being YOU. The YOU that you were created to be! THE WORLD IS WAITING!!!!!!