Compozitoarea cântecului este Natalie Grant și originalul se numește „The real me”. Pentru mine cântecul are o mare însemnătate. Este unul din acele cântece pe care-l asculți neîncetat în momentele de melancolie, adolescent licean fiind și când ai complexe de inferioritate sau când te simți ca un ratat înaintea lui Dumnezeu. E un cântec al intimității cu Dumnezeu.

Asta a însemnat cântecul pentru mine, dar povestea ce i-a dat viață are de-a face cu lupta compozitoarei Natalie Grant cu anorexia. Redau în continuare felul absolut oribil în care diavolul și-a bătut joc de ea, dar în același timp modul extraordinar prin care Dumnezeu și-a arătat harul ce schimbă vieți.

Să nu credeți că nu este o problemă contemporană, habar nu avem câți tineri (în special tinere) se luptă cu bulimia sau anorexia și nu vorbesc nimănui despre „hemoragia” sufletului. Vor să se vindece singuri, dar nu pot.

Iată o parte dintr-un interviu ce prezintă istoria din spatele cântecului (dacă nu aveți timp, treceți direct la partea subliniată, acolo este „miezul”):

MIA: Who is the real Natalie?

NATALIE: (laughs) I don’t know; I think I’m still figuring that out. I don’t know that there’s ever a point that you just arrive at ‘This is who I am’. At the same time, I think you know the real me is somebody who embraces my flaws. I speak before I think, and I think that’s my biggest flaw. And, you know I have short legs, and I have cellulite in unmentionable places (laughs), and I have a whole lot of freckles.  And all those things that God created me to be, and when He looks at me, He doesn’t see that as a flaw, He sees something beautiful.

It’s taken Natalie years to believe this truth. In her book she reveals her desperate struggle to be herself.

NATALIE: There’s such a pressure to look a certain way or be a certain way to be accepted and successful. And I fell for that lie in my own life. Even though I grew up with two godly parents who loved me and believed in me and built me up everyday, I still struggled with my self image.

And it was this constant need for approval, that constant need for affirmation and acceptance, that constantly kept me performing and performing. And as a result my relationship with the Lord really suffered because I wasn’t even being real with Him.

Her relationship with a former college boyfriend only deepened her insecurities.

NATALIE: He said, “You’re always asking me what I think is beautiful.” And I asked him because he never said I was. He pointed to this girl on a magazine and he said, “she is beyond beautiful, she’s perfect.” But I just remember thinking I don’t care how many surgeries I’d have in my life, I’d never look like that. But maybe if I work on the outside a little bit, maybe I could get a little bit more of his acceptance. Maybe he would look at me and validate me. And I remember we went to lunch after that and I thought I just need to get it out. I remember going to the bathroom in that restaurant and locking the door of that tiny stall and kneeling down on that dirty floor (getting emotional). I remember when I shoved my finger down my throat, it was like opening Pandora’s box. It wasn’t just like I was purging the food, it was like this strange feeling of freedom. I can see why it’s such an addictive behavior for girls because most often your life is so out of control, and it’s one thing that you can control, and it felt good.

MIA: How bad did it get? What happened to your physical appearance?

NATALIE: I had dropped down below 100  pounds. I was 96 pounds, and average for me is 125. My teeth began to get really yellow because of the constant purging, and my hair began to fall out. But that’s how demented our culture is. Because even with all those things, and I was beginning to look guant, I remember that my collar bone was sticking out and I thought that was so beautiful. I remember I loved seeing my bones. And obviously so did a lot of other people because I got comments about how good I looked all the time.

MIA: What was the moment that God really moved you to start seeking His help to be free?

NATALIE: Everybody’s story is different. For me, it happened on a day that I was actually kneeling at my toilet. I’ve never heard God speak audibly but the Holy Spirit speaks to us on the inside, and it’s like I felt him saying ‘My grace is enough. My grace is enough.’ And that Scripture began to transfer from my head to my heart. I remember looking at that toilet and going I am kneeling to the wrong God. I’m kneeling to this god of myself because this is what I do to make myself feel better and to feel accepted, and to look a certain way. I’m kneeling to the wrong god, and this will destroy me. I don’t know how to get control of it. And I wish I could tell you that I just popped up from the toilet, stopped making myself throw up, never did it again, and was miraculously transformed. It wasn’t. It was a long process of discovering what it is God sees when he looks at me.

MIA: What do you believe God sees when He looks at you?

NATALIE: He actually created us in His image. And the more I began to just tell myself that ‘When God sees me He sees Himself’ the more I would think, He doesn’t — God doesn’t think of Himself as ugly (laughs hysterically) I mean.

Interviul complet îl puteți găsi  AICI.

Așadar, ascultați melodia originală. Versurile diferă puțin de română, ca la orice traducere: