In my parents’ home, I grew up pretty independent. Mom and Dad taught me to be self-reliant, so I didn’t really care what people thought about me. I had a lot of friends, and I knew my family loved me. So while I never felt pressure from other people to be a certain way, I’d put a lot of pressure on myself.

As a senior in high school, I called myself stupid all the time. When I’d mess up or do something less than what I expected of myself, I’d say things such as, “You’re so stupid. How could you have lost that? You just lost your keys yesterday!” I’d beat myself up.

We girls put a lot of pressure on ourselves, but the truth is we’re very much loved. We’re good at what we do, and we’re talented. But somewhere deep inside we’ve decided, “There’s something wrong with me.” For a long time, I told myself that.

The Experiment
One day I came home from school, and my dad had a big pad of sticky notes. He said to me, “You call yourself stupid all the time.”

I said, “No, I don’t.”

And he said, “Yes, you do. Your job this week is to take this sticky pad with you, and every time you call yourself stupid, I want you to write down a tally mark. Then look at the end of each day and see how many times you said bad things to yourself.”

At the end of the week, I was amazed! I remember looking at that little pad and thinking, I’m my worst enemy!

Even now I’ll be on stage and all of a sudden these thoughts will be like rapid fire in my mind: You look so fat. What you just said was so stupid. It didn’t make any sense. I’ll let Satan get into me, and I’ll think who God made me to be is wrong or bad.

But singing this song reminds me “all that matters is knowing His love has set me free. He loves me more than these so I don’t need another identity.”

Jenny’s Favorites
Summer camp activity: relay races
Popsicle flavor: fudge pops
Swim stroke: “The frog” is when you sink to the bottom and push up to the surface like a frog.
Candy: Butterfingers
Skirt or shorts? skirt