AMAZING STORY
Fashion, Fulfillment and Faith
By Amy Reid
The 700 Club
CBN.com
–“Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to move to L. A.,” Nicole Weider recalls. “I thought that being famous was what would make me special.”
Nicole Weider began modeling at the age of five; even then she knew exactly what she wanted. “My goal was to be a Victoria’s Secret model and to be an actress,” says Nicole. “So I was placing my identity and my worth on what I thought the world wanted me to be.”
Nicole was raised by a single mom. She modeled locally until her teens, when she convinced her mother to move to the bright lights of L.A. But once they got there, making it big wasn’t as easy as Nicole thought it would be.
“When I got here, I realized that the competition was just ruthless,” says Nicole. “I would go on a casting and there would be fifty other girls who were tall,
with brunette hair and brown eyes that looked kind of like me. My agency started picking me apart and telling me that I wasn’t good enough; I wasn’t thin enough; my hair wasn’t thick enough. And it just was really hurting my self esteem.
They said, “You know, Nicole, you’re too curvy to do high fashion; maybe you could do lingerie or swimsuit work.””
Modeling lingerie wasn’t the glamorous experience Nicole expected either.
“I thought that that would make me happy being in lingerie and being in a magazine but then I ended up feeling so ashamed of my pictures that I didn’t want to show anyone,” Nicole remembers. “Job after job, I was just feeling less and less secure in who I was. And I was just feeling rejected. I thought that that was my purpose, in making it in Hollywood, but in the end it was destroying my own heart, because I was compromising myself.”
Nicole shared her struggles with a friend, who encouraged her to look to God.
“She was like, ‘God has something in store for you. It’s not necessarily acting or modeling. God has a purpose for you.’ And I just remember thinking, ‘ Maybe I should listen to her.’”
Nicole went to a women’s conference with her friend and also started going to church.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this whole message of God and redemption and salvation through Jesus, it’s just so beautiful. And He loves me just the way I am.’ I remember saying a prayer, and I was saying, “God, I am so lost right now without You. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life. I don’t know who I am anymore.’”
Nicole says she accepted Jesus as her savior and started learning more about Him.
“It wasn’t overnight that I transformed and I changed, but day after day I started reading the Bible; I started digging into His word. And I just started feeling more and more confident in who I was,” Nicole says.
Nicole says that knowing Jesus has shown her a new perspective on life.
“Jesus is my everything. He’s my Father; He’s my Best Friend. He’s my Comforter. I still believe in fashion and looking beautiful, but it’s all about pleasing
God and not pleasing the world.”
Recently, Nicole started Project Inspired, a website designed just for teenage girls.
“I wanted them to understand that they don’t need to be a celebrity; they don’t need to look like a model in order to be accepted and loved. So I wanted to create a safe community, a safe place where girls could learn about God’s world but also connect with each other,” Nicole says.
Nicole is now married and has a son. She hopes to inspire others to turn their lives over to Jesus.
“If you feel like you’re lost right now, you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, invite God in, because He makes all things new.”
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