School is difficult, right? Research papers, physic quizzes, calculus equations, english books that bore you, and chemistry labs that puzzle you. But sometimes the hardest thing about school is the people surrounding you. Some seem like they have it all together - everyone already has their best friends, everyone knows where they are sitting at lunch, the pretty girls have the boyfriends. And you just can’t seem to fit in anywhere. The jeans don’t fit anymore, the lunch tables are full, and the only locker left is the one in the corner that reeks of rotten eggs. Sometimes we just want to fit in! That is what Moriah Peters discovered.
Moriah remembers her freshmen year of high school, trying out for cheerleading just so she could show up the first day of school in a cheerleading uniform and prove she had friends. And yet, she still felt embarrassed when she had to walk along in the hallways. You know the feeling, right? We all want to be liked. We all want to have friends. We wonder what everyone thinks of us when they see us at lunch, in the bathroom, at our lockers, and in the classrooms.
We look in the mirror and hope we don’t look awkward. We wish that the orthodontist would just take all that metal out of our mouths. We wish we had that outgoing personality or had better clothes. We just want to fit in.
Moriah remembers when she was 14 years old, deciding that she did not want to give her first kiss away to a random guy playing spin the bottle or while playing seven minutes in Heaven. She wanted to save it. After making that decision, she remembers meeting boys at school. Moriah would mention she was saving her first kiss for marriage and next thing you know she never heard from them again. She had to learn to be brave and take a beautiful stand. What does it mean to be brave, anyways?
Moriah believes, “brave means standing strong for what you know to be right and being bold about what you believe in, especially when faced with opposition. It doesn’t mean it is not difficult to stand up, often times it hurts and its vulnerable and its embarrassing, but it is so worth the sacrifice of your own comfort.”
So what if we took a #beautifulstand….to be brave? Moriah confesses for a long time she found her identity in how other people viewed her so she would push herself to fit in. But now she asks, what if we saw those people in our classes sitting alone and asked if we could sit next to them? What if we sat with those who had no one to sit with at lunch? What if we got to know the new kids and introduced them to our friends? What if it was about more than just trying to fit in?
You can view Moriah's I am Second film here for more inspiration, or check out her interview with I am Second here. Who could you share this message with today?
Live Second. Take that #beautifulstand.
