When my younger daughter was ten years old, she came home from school one evening and announced at the dinner table that she was not hungry. After pressing her for more details on why she was not hungry right after school, she told me that two of her 'friends' had called her 'fat'. She took the remark to heart and completely altered her eating habits, no matter how much I objected to it. The thing that made me the angriest was that she was not even 'overweight', much less fat! She was short--shorter than most of her peers--but NOT fat.
As school ended for the summer, and those friends drifted away, she returned to her 'normal' self. During the last few weeks of school, when the remark had been thrown out, it had affected not only her eating habits, but her psyche as well. The girl that was always bubbly and smiling had become withdrawn and silent. Thankfully, as the summer passed, she had a growth spurt, and had shot up four inches by the time school started again.
Those two 'friends' had not been so blessed, and now she was taller than the both of them. Her confidence and normal eating pattern had redeveloped over the summer, so I had my bubbly, smiling daughter back, and almost as tall as me to boot! I never got to meet those girls' parents. If I had, they would have heard an earful on how an undeserved scathing comment had affected my daughter, as well as what I went through trying to undo their damage.
We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27) and we should not let the insecurities of someone else determine how we think of, or see, ourselves. Our young people are bombarded with the world from every angle. The thing that needs to be developed in them more than anything else is their confidence in who they are, as well as their confidence in who they are in the Lord.
Galatians 3:26 For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
