It was on a sunny Saturday afternoon, about 12:30 p.m, when Mrs. Joseph returned from the market. Lately, she had formed the habit of doing monthly shopping for the family instead of her usual weekly schedule.
On arrival, none of her children rushed out to greet her or assist with carrying the items she bought. It was quite unusual, especially since they were around. It was only Mr. Kasali, her gardener and gatekeeper, who came to help.
“They must be asleep,” she mused as she carried the remaining bags from her car into the kitchen. While sorting and arranging the foodstuffs into their storage containers, her motherhood instincts kicked in. Immediately, she dropped everything and rushed to her children’s rooms.
She began with Mirabel’s room. Mirabel, her 18 yr old daughter and medical student, whom she fondly calls “my doctor,” was fast asleep on her reading table. She must have been reading anatomy because her Atlas and Keith Moore textbook were spread open, with her tablet showing Kenhub resources on the stomach’s anatomy. Mrs. Joseph smiled as she closed the door quietly. Mirabel never disappointed. She was always either studying, writing, sleeping , playing scrabble, or doing her waist exercise, a new habit she had picked up since coming home for the holidays.
Next was her son’s room. Marcel, her 16 yr old son, who also came home for the holiday, was fast asleep on his bed. As usual, his room was messy. He had returned just two days ago, yet the room she had painstakingly kept clean was already disorganized, as though it hadn’t been touched in two weeks. Everything seemed normal, except for the new dumbbell he brought home. He had been lifting the heavy weighted material in the name of “building muscles.”
She moved on to her last child’s room. Marvel, her 8 yr old daughter, was nowhere in sight. Mrs. Joseph’s anxiety skyrocketed as she entered fully. She searched the room until she found her baby, as she often calls her, crouching in front of her dressing mirror and sobbing.
“Marvel! My dear, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Joseph asked as she rushed to lift her from her crouched position. However that only made Marvel cry harder. She wrapped her slender arms around her mother, buried her face in her chest, and wailed for some times before she calmed down a little. After a few minutes, she tilted her daughter’s face and lovingly looked into her teary eyes.
“My baby, tell me, what’s the problem? What happened? Did Marcel beat you? Did you injure yourself…?” Every question was met with a silent shake of her head.
“So what is the problem?” she asked, more confused.
photo credits: PHOTOSTOCK..ISRA.
“Mumm… mumm… mmyyy…” Marvel managed in between sobs, “Ti… Tife told me in school tha… tha… that my nose is bigggg…” She finished and burst into another round of tears.
For a moment, Mrs. Joseph was caught in between laughing or retaining a serious disposition. However, the former got the better of her.
Marvel stopped and stared at her in confusion.
“Mum, you’re laughing at me? Just like my friends laughed at me when Tife said that…,” she said sadly.
Mrs. Joseph quickly readjusted herself. This was a critical moment for her daughter, an identity-shaping moment, and she needed to act fast before a harmful belief settled in her child’s heart.
“No, my dear,” she said gently. “I’m laughing at those friends of yours for being so shortsighted. Because, my dear, you’ve got the most beautiful nose in the world. They may call it ‘big,’ but for you, it needs to be that size to be beautiful. God knew what He was doing. If He had given you a smaller one, it might not have suited you. Your friends don’t see you the way God sees you or the way your mum sees you.”
“Oh really?” Marvel’s eyes softened.
”That sounds cool…” Marvel continued and brightened up immediately. She stood up, looked at herself in the mirror again, wiped away her tears and smiled broadly. “Thank you, Mum,” she said and huggeg her tightly.
Mrs. Joseph smiled, but it faded almost instantly.
“Go and call Marcel and Mirabel for me. Please wake them gently and bring my Bible along.”
“Yes, Mum!” Marvel replied and scurried away happily.
It dawned on Mrs. Joseph that her children were struggling with identity issues. The new waist exercises Mirabel had suddenly adopted, the muscle-building routine Marcel had incorporated into his morning routines, and Marvel’s distress over her nose, all pointed to an underlying problem.
She remembered how she too battled insecurity about her height when her so-called friends mocked her for being “ vertically challenged. ” There was nothing she could do to change her height, yet the thought of being inadequate gnawed at her self-esteem like a malignancy. It wasn’t until one of her quiet-time sessions that God led her to the verse she was about to share with her children. That scripture liberated her mind completely and she was thankful she had that encounter. Without it, she would have been clueless on how to help her children.
In about five minutes, the three children were seated before her. After they had greeted her, she began by saying a prayer—a move that left them confused. It was only 1 p.m., and their mother had never held an afternoon devotion before. Dad and Mum never missed morning and night devotions, but afternoon prayers? This was new.
After praying, she engaged them in a deep conversation. She asked indirect questions—questions shaped by divine wisdom—and received honest responses. She wasn’t wrong after all.
Marcel’s desire for muscles came from friends teasing him about his slender build. Mirabel felt she needed to look a certain way to appear attractive—a mindset her friends had subtly instilled in her.Marvel’s issue was the “nose-size dilemma.”
She asked Marvel to read Col.2: 10 which she did. “ And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: “
After she finished reading, Mrs. Joseph began,
“My dear children, I understand your desire to look acceptable and ‘complete’ but we can only find that completeness in Jesus Christ. God designed our physical features to vary—He did that out of his creativity and not necessarily for man’s approval. God didn’t create us to compare ourselves with others but to glorify Him for the uniqueness He expressed in us.”
“If you ever look at yourself in the mirror and find what people call ‘deficiencies’, I want you to know that they are not deficiencies—they are what make you distinct. The world is forever chasing an illusion of perfection, especially in physical forms but ends up in a cycle of disappointment. True perfection is only in Jesus Christ.”
She continued: “I’m not condemning your activities, but the mindset behind them. If you exercise to stay fit and healthy to the glory of God, that is fine. But if you do it to either please people or gain their approval, you are setting yourself up for a bigger disappointment. The carnal man is confused, and nothing you do can ever satisfy a confused person.”
“Whatever it is you have or not should not make you despise yourself. As long as God considers you good enough, that is all that matters. If you still feel inadequate, it is because your gaze is not on Jesus. You have placed it on man’s approval. Choose to see yourself only through the lens of your completeness in Him. That is the only platform where God designed man to be complete. Any seemingly ‘completeness’ outside Christ is a mirage.“
“This is why the world will forever run a rat race because they don’t have Christ as their base. “
“Finally, my dear children, dissociate yourselves from friends who make you look down on yourself. Good friends draw you closer to God and help you become the best version of yourself to fulfil your purpose. I do hope you understood all I have said.”
They all nodded in acceptance and were grateful to have their Mum come to their rescue.
At the end of her admonition, she prayed with them and led them to rededicate their lives to God.
Dear friends, has Mrs. Joseph spoken to you also? Think about it, and allow the Holy Spirit to shine His light on the areas where you struggle with your identity. Surrender them to Christ and rest in the perfection He gives, for you and I are only complete in Christ Jesus.