“If you look up the word loser in the dictionary,” sighs Kelly Sue, “My picture would be next to it.” To say that Kelly Sue doesn’t like herself is the understatement of the year. She is solidly convinced that her mouth is too big, her legs too pudgy, her hair too straggly, her voice too squeaky, and her glasses too thick, not to mention broken. Kelly Sue could be the proverbial poster child for the “I Hate Myself Club.”

Getting Kelly Sue to even start talking is a substantial accomplishment in itself, but once Chip does engage her in a conversation they talk through the FACTS of who Kelly Sue really is and how her FEELINGS are not based on those facts. Her painful paradigm slowly, but definitely, transforms as she begins to understand that she was lovingly designed and carefully crafted to be exactly the way she is, even her physical features, for the specific purposes and plans that her creator had planned for her.

In her pain and exasperation, Kelly Sue blurts out, “But I’m so stupid.” When Chip responds with, “Well, Kelly Sue, am I so stupid, too,” Kelly Sue gushes, “Of course you’re not stupid. You are smart and wise and likable and, well, just the opposite of me.” As they continue talking, however, Kelly Sue begins to gradually understand that since it is Chip living through her, she bears the same identity as Chip. How can Kelly Sue’s mind be dull when Chip’s is sharp? And how can she be a loser when Chip is not? In the end Kelly Sue begins to see that she, too, has been “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) for a specific purpose on this earth.

Kelly Sue helps hurting Christians understand that what they appear to be on the outside is not necessarily who they are on the inside, and that their authentic identity is found in who is living His life in and through them.