Acceptance

Acceptance:

Where does yours come from?

This is a question that has been circulating around in my head for some time now and I've earnestly been trying to give it meaning or some sort of definition but I come up empty handed.

You see I've never been able to truly put my finger on my seemingly overwhelming lack of self-confidence coupled with my desire to just be accepted. I've tried changing things about myself - my fashion, hair, view of things and even gotten ridiculous and changed my laugh a time or two.  I know, ridiculous. However I can't seem to figure out why, even after all these changes that are all attempts to please other people, why I still feel so empty.

I talk to God and ask Him why it's so important to me to be accepted by everyone I'm around. It's crushing to me when 1 out of 10 people don't like me. So then I make it a point to change their mind even if it requires me changing myself. But in the process of doing all of that I think lose myself the most. So not only am I without their acceptance I also lost myself along the way.  Which then begs the question - is it really worth it? 

All this to say that at the conclusion of this horrific and unsatisfactory search for "acceptance" I realized that which can be summed up in a few words - "I must decrease so that He may increase"

So basically, I need to shut-down my pride and worldy-desire to be accepted by people who are probably not going to be around for very long anyway.  I need to stop worrying about whether or not people think I'm "cool", or guys thinking I'm pretty, or people finding me hilarious, or finding acceptance based off all I've accomplished in my life - be it honor-role at my school or finding the greatest sub ever created.  Life isn't about gaining acceptance and approval from others because in the end people change and are prone to thinking differently about someone. We're human, it happens.

What matters, then?  All this struggle to come up empty handed and reach a conclusion that a lot of people have come to as well?  Nope.

What matters is God. He created me for a specific purpose. To try and change that for someone else is turning out to be a lot harder than originally anticipated. So I'm giving up. I'm done trying to make people like me just so they'll like me. It's an empty search filled with empty promises. There are those who accept me just for who I am and that's enough - not to mention I'm accepted by God who created everything and it is in that I find contentment. 

I want to be known as someone who loves God and loves well as opposed to one who has the most popularity votes from others.