Rachel Farnsworth is The Stay at Home Chef.
Her website reads, “I’m Rachel, and I’m dishing up restaurant-quality RECIPES you can easily make at home.”
Rachel has a huge social media following, with over 2M followers on her Facebook page alone.
She’s known for posting amazing recipes on her blog and video recipes on her YouTube channel.
Here’s her YouTube intro clip:
One day, Rachel received the following comment on her blog and decided to address it in a video that has since gone viral.
The comment read, “You look like you’re 70 with your gray hairs. You should really consider dying them for TV so you don’t look like an old hag… Just a suggestion.”
In a blog addressing the viral video, Rachel later explained: “[The comment] didn’t hurt my feelings, and it didn’t surprise me either. Lots of people have commented about my gray hair over the years, and I have never been ashamed to share my reasons.”
In the powerful video, she begins by explaining that she does not dye her hair because her husband wants to be able to grow old with her— but there is a much deeper meaning to those words.
“If you read my About page,” she continues, “You’ll see that I have a rare autoimmune disease, which means that I will most likely never live to be 70 years old… Every sign of aging that I have is a sign that I’m still alive.“
The topic seems difficult for Rachel to discuss, but despite her teary eyes, she manages to keep a pleasant tone.
Rachel goes on to explain that she grew up with a jaw deformity that became prominent during her adolescent years. As a result of the issue, she was bullied fiercely and had extremely low self-esteem. “I felt like I was some sort of hideous monster,” she says.
Rachel had to wait until she was an adult and had finished growing before she was able to get the deformity corrected. Unfortunately, it did not make the impact on her life that she had anticipated.
She explains, “I always told myself that once I finally got the surgery, I would be happy, and I would be beautiful then.”
“After that, surgery came and went, and I was really happy for a little bit. But once the excitement wore off, I was just me, and I was the same person I’d always been, and I still felt the exact same way about myself.“
Rachel goes on to say that it has taken her years to learn to love herself and all of her flaws, listing them to the audience: “I have a crooked nose, I’ve got freckles and bags under my eyes…”
“I have a yellow tint to my skin, I have hairs that grow in places I don’t want them to […] And, I also have gray hair… And I love all of it. It’s taken me a long time to learn that.”
Rachel ends her video with a powerful request that has inspired the #BeThatPerson hashtag.
She says, “The world needs more people who will build each other up instead of tearing each other down.
The world needs more men like my husband who are willing to encourage women to embrace who they are.
The world needs more women who are willing to rock their body exactly the way that God made them…
“Be that person.
“Be that person.
“Be that person.”
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
