Scar Tissue (Stuck sequel)

She shrieked in a braggadocious manner to her friends and cackled about her “drip.” Her makeup was thick, her lashes slick, her abdomen and behind exposed, and her shorts so tight, they barely fit. I listened as this rumbustious and uncouth high school girl screamed to the boys around, begging for attention. I questioned, “Who failed her? And what adult around her is ‘stuck?’” Despair is what I discern.

The thing about despair is it shows up in many ways like an inordinately made-up face, obsession over the perfect weave, designer fashions, being boastful, and attention-seeking. I knew this teenager had seen something that left her longing, hopeless, lacking identity, and willing to conform and act unbecoming to gain adoration. She had grown scar tissue.

Scar tissue is how our body copes with brokenness, lacerations, pain, or damage; it’s a mechanism to mask a wound or a hole with new tissue and skin. This definition can be medical and cultural. The condition is created and fostered by someone who’s stuck. Our girls desperately seek something in the wrong place and frame of mind. They attribute their drip, appearance, shallow personality, and frivolous ambitions, to their favorite rapper or reality star because they do it. Young girls think being ratchet, promiscuous, a drug user, superficial, overtly sexual, and fame-obsessed is proper and permissible. Well, your favorite celebrity is broken, and they aid in breaking their followers. Despair is what I discern.

Scar tissue will show you up in all the pretty things you have and seek to own, amplifying the torment each time it rears its head and you put those things on. You will learn, young woman, that money does not hide the inside. In reality, it magnifies all of it. Every single portion. The arrogance, the depression, the narcissism and vanity, the perfectionism, the shallow morale and virtue, the loneliness, the lack of self-confidence, and the shortage of true friendships- because who really wants to hang with an insecure braggart who can be loud, careless, and rude? Eventually, they all fade. And you wonder why the despair deepens each time you see another girl out-doing you. You are running in a never-ending race. You’re seeking to obtain a level of beauty that does not exist because you don’t feel safe. Know this, when everyone takes off the makeup, weave, labels, etc., they look nothing like they did with it on. They, too, are vulnerable, unsure, unaware, and alone.

The pretending and embellishing all to convince other people of the golden pedestal you sit on. Young girl, the gold is plated and inauthentic. What is your intention behind your behaviors? To make them jealous? To make him desire? To shield the empty? To feel important? Or worthy, seen, adored, better than? Glamorizing is toxic because we spend so much time convincing others of something we do not believe. Remember, shallow follows shallow and empty echoes to its fellows- they all appreciate the nothingness of the façade being displayed by you and the masses.

The plot thickens as your ego thins out. Scar tissue is what I discern. Who hurt you? There is a woman behind you who is stuck. Or is it a man? They didn’t care enough to free you, or they did not know enough to. So, you struggle throughout your young life trying to fit in yet stand out while your body, mind, and spirit fade away. You don’t know better and are not humble enough to learn.

The LORD gives you identity. He wants to shape you into the beauty you’re supposed to be and provide you with certainty amidst the deafening depravities. But you block, battle, and deny. Ironically, you claim to be a Christian and a 'Proverbs 31 woman' while wearing a ton of everything unnatural, showing off your body, competing with other women to get looks, and flaunting around in skimpy outfits for likes. Young woman, you should question to whom you sincerely give your allegiance, to the God in Heaven or the prince of this world. One saves and delivers, and the other enslaves and disfigures.

We overlook the dysfunction in the young generations because we refuse to acknowledge our own. Too many adult mothers envying and vicariously living through their young/adult daughters. The hair, the clothing, the ignorance, the lack of Jesus Christ, the blatant disrespect, the nonexistence of morals, awareness, and goals, the fixation on social media, modern culture, and music, the adult neglect, the absence of leadership and parental guidance, and most importantly, SELF-WORSHIP. Did you know that self-worship is satanic? It’s idolatry and sin- all of it. Yet, God in Heaven is waiting to free you from the confinements of a society that will only use, abuse, exhaust, and weaken you. Cutting you deeply, twisting the knife, and leaving you to bleed while you lie spiritually dead, in pain with a pretty face, praying the wound heals so the scar tissue can again form and conceal.

Despair is what I discern. Young woman, who hurt you?