Celebration

On Friday I will turn 49 years old. I've decided to start the celebration today by celebrating me.

The Bible tells me that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. Through the genetics of my parents and all their predecessors, God designed a very unique and beautiful me. He also selected passions, gifts, characteristics and personality traits and placed them all within me. The wonderful me that He designed includes:

• A heart of compassion and mercy.
• An intense love for nature and all living creatures.
• Creativity and artistic gifts.
• A relentless imagination.
• A sense of humor and appreciation of laughter.
• An insatiable appetite to learn.
• A keen ability to retain vast amounts of information, useful and otherwise.
• A love of stories - reading them, watching them and telling them.
• A fierce love for family and friends.
• Spiritual gifts that demonstrate His love to others.
• Brown eyes, silver/brown hair, a crooked smile and a naturally voluptuous body that add up to beautiful. (Wow! That felt really good to write!)
• Most importantly of all, He gave me a relationship with Him.

For far to long, I have focused on my shortcomings, my mistakes, and what I am not. I have bought into the pervasive message of media, advertising, well-meaning critical people, and often the church saying that I am not good enough. No matter how hard I try, I am not meeting some goal, some ideal, some measure of success, some Biblical directive, or someone's opinion of who I should be and what I should be doing. Recently, I came to the horrifying realization that I have spent the greater part of my life trying to please people. So many major decisions in my life were made in an effort to please someone or gain someone's approval. This path has led to depression, anxiety, insecurity, and the constant feeling of failure. I have a new goal:

Follow the Lord and be pleasing to Him.

The first step in this goal is to humble myself to Him by letting Him show me who I am. I must strip off all the outside influences that dictate to me to be this or be that. A few weeks ago, I asked the Lord where I was in my spiritual walk with Him. I heard one word - "detox." He has opened my spiritual eyes and ears to all the toxic waste that has been piled upon me. One by one, these toxins are falling away. One of these toxins is self-hate. I could write an entire blog on this, but not today. Simply put, Christians are so often warned against being selfish and self-centered that we often take that to an extreme. I did. But, I have a new revelation now:

If God loves me, and I know that He does, then who I am to hold my judgment above His and not love myself.

I am talking about a healthy self-love that comes from seeing myself through God's eyes and celebrating the unique creation that I am. Submitting to God's vision of me provides me with a greater trust in Him and security within myself. God loves me and accepts me as I am. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am valuable to Him. I am worthy of His love.  Once these concepts are settled within me, then I am free from the bondage of trying to validate myself through others opinions. I am free from the insecurity of trying to be good enough. My opinion of myself is settled and no influence can change it. When changes in my life, thoughts, attitude, emotions, actions, habits or appearance need to be made, God will let me know. I will see myself in the mirror of His word and make the changes accordingly.

Jesus gave us two commandments that fulfill all the law and the prophets:
1. Love God with all your heart, soul and mind.
2. Love others as yourself.

If I don't love myself, then how can I love others? Loving myself as God loves me frees me up to love others as God loves them.

So, today I celebrate the me that God loves. I embrace His love for me with my whole heart!