A woman who received a hate comment on her blog – suggesting that she dye her hair to look younger – issued a powerful statement emphasizing the beauty of God’s intentional design.
“You look like you’re 70 with your grey hairs,” the comment read. “You really should consider dyeing them for TV so you don’t look like such an old hag. Just a suggestion”
The woman – whose name is Rachel and runs the cooking blog The Stay At Home Chef – said in a video posted to Facebook that she is 31 years old and has a “fair amount of grey hairs.”
“Now, normally, I just share recipes,” she said. “But, today, I wanted to take the time to talk about this comment.”
In contrary to the commenter’s opinion, Rachel’s husband actually feels strongly that she shouldn’t dye her hair because “he wants us to grow old together,” Rachel said.
“How cute is that?” she asked.
Rachel disclosed that she has been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, which means she most like will “never live to be 70 years old,” she said.
“Every sign of aging that I have is a sign that I’m still alive,” she said, fighting back tears. “A lot of people don’t get the privilege to ever live to be old, and I probably won’t either.”
Rachel said she “doesn’t have time to waste” criticizing herself and other people.
“I care a lot more about what my life is like right now,” she said.
Rachel learned this lesson early in life. Growing up, she said she dealt with a rare jaw deformity that emerged “really prominently” during her puberty years.
“And of course, there were plenty of kids who took the opportunity to point that out to me and make fun of me,” she said. “And I let it completely break me. I felt like I was some sort of hideous monster.”
Rachel said she had to wait until she stop developing to get the jaw deformity fixed, and she would tell herself that once she finally got the surgery, she would be happy and beautiful.
“That surgery came and went,” she said. “And I was really happy for a little bit, and then once the excitement wore off, I realized that I was just me, and I was the same person I’d always been, and I still felt the exact same way about myself.”
The cooking blogger said it has taken her more than a decade of “really hard work” to change the felt she felt about herself. This included accepting her imperfections, such as her “crooked nose with a hook in it,” her freckles, the bags under her eyes, the yellow tint to her skin, errant hairs all over her body, and her weight fluctuations, stretch marks, wrinkles and grey hair.
“And I love all of it,” she said. “It’s taken me a long time to learn that.”
Rachel emphasized the need for more people in the world who “build each other up instead of tearing each other down.”
“The world needs more men like my husband who are willing to encourage women to embrace who they are,” she said. “The world needs more women who are willing to rock their bodies exactly the way that God made them.”
“Be that person,” she says as the viral video comes to a close.
The video had been shared nearly 225,000 times as of Monday morning.
(H/T: Facebook)