My fog cleared When a nickname was shattered
By Goldie Chong
From the photos of my growing up years, there is not one where I smiled. I was either sulking, sad or serious. The reason was there was nothing to smile about. I was labouring under a vicious cloud of accusation throughout my youth. My mother lovingly nicknamed me ‘Foggy’ to the merriment of the whole family. This came about because she once bought my sister and me some underwear. Since we were only a year apart, we wore the same size. I had the bright idea that to differentiate which belonged to her and which belonged to me, I took a pair of scissors and cut a small hole in mine. Other incidents contributed to this impression of weird behaviour, and the label of Foggy stuck. When the family laughed, inwardly I wept. I thought I was really dumb.
Once a friend of my mom came to our home. She was from the same school but several years my senior. I was chatting with her and felt good talking to a respected senior. She was asking me about something when my mom interrupted, “don’t ask Goldie; she doesn’t know.” Mom was trying to come to my rescue, but I felt humiliated in the eyes of someone who I was trying to form a good impression of. My self-image plummeted…. I was not qualified to converse with older people…. I am stupid and don’t know enough…. From then on, I was always nervous about speaking to people who were older, more knowledgeable, or had more authority than me. The label that I was foggy was confirmed.
Years passed. As an adult, married, with children, one time in a church ladies meeting, the speaker addressed a situation I could identify with. She took the whole group by shaking off the lie that we were not good enough. She prayed that our self-image, self-esteem be restored and repaired because we should listen to what God says about us instead of what others say or what we say. I do not remember how she prayed, but on looking back, I understand that something happened in the spiritual realm because from that day, I was set free from my low esteem because the speaker replaced the enemy’s lie with the truth. I accepted God’s view of me that I was His handiwork, created specifically according to His plan. In God’s eyes, I was not foggy, not dumb; He gave me a good brain, an intelligent mind. It did not matter what others thought of me; it mattered only what God thought. I knew I was healed because I can laugh about it whenever I recall my name Foggy. I do not believe what is untrue. God’s truth has set me free.
