Coca Cola Lip Gloss

Remember that book?  Are you there God, it's me Margaret?

I must admit when i read the book, i read it because everyone was reading it and it was the thing to do.  I tried wearing wedges, because...well, she wore them and it was the thing to wear.  
I went through a harriet the spy thing...so i wrote everything in my diary, everything.   What i thought of everyone and then was terrified someone was going to read it (my mother did, then she wrote it in...wow...trauma).
When i think about my youth, i realize, it took a long time for me to find me.  I copied what others wore and what others did and what others watched.
I remember being bummed, because everyone was watching Happy Days, and my mother found it to risque and wouldn't let me watch it. Then i finally got to watch it...no big thrill.
One of my best friends LOVED coca cola lipgloss, so i bought some....can you tell you how much i hated that stuff?  Oh my goodness, but i kept putting that crap on my lips and i hated it so much...but hey, i thought it was how i was going to be cool.
I have tried to fit in, i can't tell you how many times.
Then one day, i realized i had to stop.
It wasn't like i had a HUGE revelation that wow, I CAN BE ME!!  It actually was because of the coca cola lip gloss.   There i was, in the store, about to buy my umteenth tube of it (i was KNOWN for it, boys joked about it, girls asked to borrow my cola) and i saw watermelon lip gloss.  Oh wow, i loved watermelon.  It was like...my favorite fruit.  I loved watermelon.  So...wow, i bought watermelon.  And i tried it on...and oh wow, i loved it.  Funny thing, kids actually noticed and a few said it was cool and they were glad i got rid of that awful other lip gloss.....
It started something.  I got rid of the awful uncomfortable shoes that were cool and i got blue sueded earth shoes (remember them?  Heels lower than the front, totally comfortable).
Now, it wasn't a huge moment, i didn't throw all the stuff out and start all over - but gradually, it was easier to look at what i liked.  I got teased a lot..i tried different things with my hair, many were bombs.  I tried wearing different style shirts, i loved clogs.  I laugh now, i was teased for wearing clogs when i was in high school...years later, every one wears that and they are still the only shoes i can wear comfortably. 
I watch kids today, going through the same thing i went through, trying to fit in, trying to make myself more attractive, more along the same lines of everyone else, trying to make friends, trying to be what they think the others want them to be.
I keep thinking "that's not what God has in mind"  He doesn't want everyone to look alike, act alike, be the same.  Yes, we are all created in HIS image, but He drew us the way he wanted us.  He wanted me to have long stringy hair and my son to have beautiful curly hair.   He made some of us heavier, others thinner, some tall, some short...and for us all to have our own minds.   Our own opinions.  Our own tastes.
But how to get the kids around me to know it is okay to be themselves?  How to get them to understand that being oneself is a good thing?  
I pray for our youth.  I pray they see the beauty in being who they are.  I pray they learn that not everyone has to like coca cola lip gloss, that it is okay to like the watermelon lipgloss.  
Maybe i can hunt some of that disgusting lipgloss down one day and use it as a sermon illustration. 
I love who you are.