I woke up this morning and was wondering how I would spend time with God. As I sat quietly, a conversation I had with a friend, on esteem flash through my mind. A voice said ‘Share your story’, and that’s when I knew what my conversation with God and the circle of friends reading this would be.

About 12 years ago, I got pimples on my face a year after I hit puberty. That didn’t bother me much, because I had seen my aunt’s pimples treated. Three years later, the pimples were aggravated, and I was blamed for pinching them and doing all what nots, which wasn’t true. It didn’t help that I was a sports person and spent half my days playing under the sun. After playing, my face would be burning even after the sun had gone down. We went and saw a doctor who prescribed some pills. The pills messed up my hormonal system. They were given in line with pills for my knees. So I stopped the pills altogether. The pimples disappeared for a while and reappeared.

For a while, I refused to concentrate on my appearance, because it just brought depression. I wondered what people thought when they looked at my face.  Over the years, people gave me all sorts of advice to do this; do that. I kept asking God why he could not just take it away. He was able to heal the lame, raise the dead and heal the woman who had been suffering for years. Why couldn’t he just take this away from me?

Four years at university, I refused to let it bother me, but towards my last year in 2012, I went to see a dermatologist. I was not too happy when she asked  me what I have been using on my face, and if the sun aggravated my pimples.  She prescribed  pills, cream and lotion and told me to come back after a month.

I had hoped for an explanation, a screen test on my face and the reason why I had had this for years. Well, I went home and obediently took the pills, and had my face burnt by the cream. Everyone asked me what I did to my face, which did not help me at all. I was sick from internal bleeding for a week and got a fever. It was about two weeks before one of my dear sisters traveled  back to her home country, and she wanted a roomie photo. Now looking back, I was not particularly thrilled about the photos, because my face looked scared and battered. I felt really ugly and unfit to see myself.

To cover my feelings up, I switched into my old self, which used to be ‘Tom boy’. As long as I acted tough, nothing could get to me. That was a lie I kept telling myself. I wanted to feel beautiful and pretty. It didn’t help that my friends called me pretty. I am grateful that they did.

After I moved to the cooler parts of Nairobi, the temperature improved my face along with aloe vera scrub and honey soap that I had found. My pimples began to disappear, allowing me to feel pretty and happy. It started dawning on me that I had for years, thought myself ugly because of my pimples. I had defined my happiness based on how I looked and what people thought of me. I broke down and told God I was sorry. I asked him to take it away once and for all. I was talking and not listening as I have always done half the time. I went back to see the dermatologist, but she was not there and I never went back. My face cleared up and I was able to take a photo.  Everyone wanted to know my secret, but I had no secret to tell. I just explained exactly what had happened, not to mention that I was in the hospital for a week going through other treatments. I do believe those many injections and pills had something to do with the quick recovery on my face. So for 8 months I enjoyed a cleared pretty face.

A week before my departure to home, Cameroon, , I went back to the campus where I had lived for 3.5 years. With the hard water there, my pimples came back like they never left. O my word! I could not believe it. “I am going home and was hoping to show my mother my face without pimples and now I have nothing to show but more pimples”. I felt back into depression, although I had smiles on my face. I lost confidence in many things and just wanted to hide my face, especially now that I had given up my coping mechanism and just wanted to be a normal lady.

I travelled to England and could not stand some of the stares people gave me. I just wanted to go home and stay with my family. I asked God to help me find my inner happiness. Tears flowed down my face as I laid there in pain and sadness. After praying for days on end, a peace came over me and I went and saw a dermatologist, who screened my face.  I was relieved when he found that I had been suffering from Acne.

There’s mild acne, which causes blackheads here and there, but then disappear, and there’s the aggressive acne that’s hormonal based. We are born with male and female genes, XY, and some people tend to have one of the others dominate. I was not surprised when he explained that I had quit an amount of male hormones that were aggravating my acne suppressing my female hormones. What are the odds taken that I have a twin brother?

So he gave me pills to take every day 2 hrs before I eat or 2 hrs after I eat. I was also given a cream to put every night. My treatment began in October 2013, and I have been on it till now July 19^th 2014. The first 3 months showed no signs of improvement, so he added another pill, which is used for birth control as well as treating acne. This is only used for aggressive acne and for the purpose of treating the acne. So I was placed on it for 6 months.

I prayed very hard for God to bring healing in my heart, so that I could enjoy the benefits of the appearance. I felt like a load had been lifted off my heart, but then there was that lingering feeling; who was I trusting? I felt like I was betraying my trust in God. Then he brought me comfort through his word, reminding me of his love and affirmation of who I have always been in him. I am his daughter and he loves me for who I am. He wants me to be happy and doctors are his hands on earth. He will use them to bring healing to his children when they trust and obey him. As I marvelled at his love and trust, my facial appearance became smooth and shining.

I realized that in my years of unworthiness, I had found comfort in depression, which blocked out God’s voice. His healing could not reach me, because I had given up hope. I had trusted him to heal my knee and he did, so why hadn’t I done the same for my face? Being able to know that I was suffering from something and not just the foods I ate enabled me to know that I could be cured. True healing for me as I can see now, didn’t come just from the meds I was taking, but it came from the acceptance that I was pretty despite my acne. I made a decision to be happy even when everything is telling me no. I would say yes to life, yes to joy and yes to love even when my mind was struggling to comprehend what I was doing. It was not a coping mechanism, but a choice to be me. This happiness from within brought out the best in me.

God’s healing begins with our hearts, when we can truly accept our situation and understand that he is in control. I see myself over the years and my pictures today; I know I have a testimony to share.

”Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear” 1 Peter 3:3-6

Every day is learning experience for me, and I praise God and thank him for every situation that enables me to draw closer to him and to understand his ways. In the silence of my room two minutes after i woke up, I realized i have not really sat down to give God the glory. So I share this with you in hopes that it will help you find your true happiness and healing. True healing comes from a partnership with God inside.