nails&stuff.

a week or two ago, I decided to paint my nails. I don’t usually do it because to be honest, I’m not used to it. The reason being is that the school I attended in the Philippines for about 10 years emphasized simplicity. with that core value came a bunch of rules regarding how we were to dress while in school – no hoop or dangling earrings, only a wristwatch or a bracelet can be worn, applying nail polish was strictly forbidden, and a bunch of others meant to emphasize simplicity, modesty, and austerity in appearance.

I was almost done when my brother came in my room. I asked him how my nails looked and he said they were okay; they looked really blue. all I could see, however, were the imperfections – smudges of nail polish and all sorts of small, mundane things which can be fixed thanks to the wonder that is the nail polish remover. he said I was worrying over nothing because as he so kindly said, no one would inspect / look that closely. all that the people would see is the colour blue.

later that night, I realized that as sad as it was, the way I looked at my nails is how I sometimes look at myself – full of imperfections and flaws (which is a natural thing to do, I know). but what tends to happen is that I focus on my smudges and flaws to the point where I lose sight of the good that other people see in me, the good that I know is within me, and the fact that like the nail polish remover, I can still do things in order to better myself.

at the heart of it though, I think what bothered me the most was the realization that most of the time, I’m hard on myself. I find it hard to forgive myself for things that go wrong even if they’re fixable. or worse, even if I know it’s not my fault because it’s beyond my control and nothing I do can alter the situation.

I don’t know what it was but I became sad thinking about my situation (which makes me laugh now because ew, it sounds so pathetic). i realized it’s subconsciously affecting me even if I don’t say it openly and  for some reason, I had this inkling to re-read my old journal and through the random page I opened, God spoke to me clearly. the journal took me back to something I wrote in September 2013 – a few days after our cluster’s discovery camp. I was asked to do the first talk which was called through the Father’s eyes and written on my journal is this:

Sab, even if other people see you as a flawed and imperfect person, and you yourself come to believe that because of what they say, the Father still sees and will always see you as His child who is to be taken cared of. you are worthy of love. you are worthy to be loved. nothing you do or can’t do, for that matter, will ever change the way He looks at you.

with that though, I have to remember to recognize the fact that there will be days when it’s hard and tough and everything will just be unbearable. when all that I can resort to is to get angry at myself for things that aren’t even of my own doing. but even so and all the more when that happens, I should strive to seek not only the good in me but God Himself because in Him and through His love, I can feel and be whole once more. His grace and mercy makes me smudge free, so to speak, and it’s up to me to believe in that so I can see myself in that light too. that night, through the smudges in my nails and what the nail polish remover can do, I was reminded of how great God is. because even if we ourselves have given up on our very being, He has not and will never do so.