In leading the church’s youth group, Lie sees these ideas filtering into young people, as the Chinese youth don’t want to socialize with or date non-Chinese.
“I teach teens and young adults that such stigma does not come from God,” Lie said. “I encourage them to interact with people of all ethnicities and who have different skin color, both in church ministry and in social settings, so they can broaden their perspectives, realizing that individuals from different ethnicities are not as they might have thought.”
For Natalisa, the despair over her dark skin only dissipated through a closer relationship with God and a supportive Christian community. “I didn’t dare to develop myself until I realized the value of self-worth in the eyes of God during college discipleship,” she recalled. She joined a small group where friends not only affirmed and accepted her, but also helped her embrace herself as God created her to be.
By viewing herself through a biblical perspective, she was finally able to brush off the culture’s beauty standard. With this understanding, her perspective on herself changed.
She points to Genesis 1:26—“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’”—as the lynchpin that helped her accept her appearance.
“If the Almighty says I am already perfect when he created me, what more needs to be changed?”https://t.co/S6UeeqK9NS
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) July 31, 2023