The Best of Us

 I stepped into the elevator around 8:10am on a Tuesday. Inside was one lonely rider to travel to the “P2” parking garage with. He was an Indian man with a head full of thick jet black hair, a bright gold chain around his neck with a medallion I couldn't see, tucked beneath the collar of his button up. But those weren't the first things I noticed about him. The first thing I noticed was his extremely slight stature. He couldn't have been more than 5-foot-three-inches and with the heels I’d chosen to wear that day, I towered over him.

I instantly felt the rush of self-consciousness as I backed closest to the wall away from him and tried to contract my spine. I leaned on one foot so I wasn’t as starkly tall. I avoided eye contact and bounded out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened.

When I got to the office and approached my second set of elevators, I was greeted with the same feeling as there stood the girl I nicknamed  “The Girl From Floor 33.” I see her every now and again and she is PERFECT. Petite with dark brown hair and always dressed to the nines, ears studded with iridescent pearls or sparkly diamonds. Her all-black outfit was perfection this day, multiple strands of cascading pearls hung from her neck, standing out against the stark black of her top, her hair perfectly coiffed into a top-knot that would put pinterest to shame and her no-doubt designer leather bag draped over her arm; Wall Street Journal in her other hand.

Suddenly I felt very juvenile in my olive Banana Republic shirt from years ago and black dress pants that had a very imperfect crease down the middle. My laptop case swung clumsly from my shoulder and I regretted hitting the snooze button so many times as I could see the crimpy ends of my hair out the corner of my eye.  

When I reached the 25^th floor and hurried to the safety of my cube, I began to wonder why I felt that way. Why in the presence of these two, I felt suddenly so aware of my height and my clothes and frazzled hair?I wondered if others had daily wrestling matches with the monstrous, sword-wielding confidence-crushing thoughts of self-consciousness and unworthiness? I wondered if others let thoughts like these get the best of them? 

I wondered about the Indian man in the elevator. Did his height make him uncomfortable in a totally different way than mine did? And The Girl From Floor 33 – does she struggle? What could she possibly struggle with? She’s perfect! But maybe she does. Maybe she has an ingrown hair on her pinky toe – who knows?

It’s so easy to see the beauty in others. And sometimes very hard to see it in ourselves.  

But God made us just the way we are for a reason….Some days it’s hard to remember this. But on the days I do, it’s so freeing. It’s freeing to know that God made me to be all 67- and-a-half inches tall that I am. And he made the Indian man to be the tiny stature that he is. And he made The Girl From Floor 33 to be a knockout. But it’s freeing to know that when He sees me, He takes pleasure in my height or my nose I don’t love and even my “football player knees” (thanks for those by the way Dad).

Not that I won’t struggle with these feelings again…..maybe tomorrow when I step on another elevator they will return. But for today, I will remember that

I am a masterpiece.

And you are a masterpiece.

For You formed my inward parts; 

You wove me in my mother’s womb. 

I will give thanks to You, for I am FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. 

Psalm 130:13-14