I recently celebrated a birthday, and with each birthday God blesses me with, I like to do a little reflection. This year my focus has been self acceptance and self-love. As women we all have things we would like to change about ourselves, make improvements and so forth. However sometimes if we are not careful we can get into a dangerous area where we don’t believe we are enough just the way we are, sadly enough I had entered into that zone. I began to look in the mirror and couldn’t find anything that I liked about myself. I didn’t like my hair, my face, my shoe size, my body size, so much so that I would avoid the mirror and taking photos of myself when at all possible.
Then one day I was preparing to speak to a group of young ladies ranging from age 13-18 and the topic was self-love. So, I did my research and as I was preparing to speak to the girls the Lord spoke to me and said, this is for you too. I love you as much as I love them, I made them in my image just like I made you, what I say about them I say the same about you I am no respect of person. Therefore the same promises I make to them I make to you also. As I wrote down the notes for the workshop I started to cry because I could feel in my spirit what God was saying. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I am the righteousness of God, I am more than a conqueror, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world, he who began a good work in me will continue till the day of Christ, God has a plan for my life, I have purpose, if God is for me who can be against me.
When I began to reflect on the goodness of God and all he has done for me, I had to ask for forgiveness for disrespecting his creation like he had made a mistake. I also thanked him for giving me this assignment because, I may not have put things in proper perspective otherwise. I’m teaching young girls about self acceptance and self-love and I didn’t believe it for myself, if I couldn’t believe Gods promises for myself how could I be effective in teaching it to someone else. I needed to be the change that I wanted to see in them. I want these girls to be proud of how God made them in spite of what social media or society says pretty or beautiful is, they need to believe what God says about them that meant I needed to believe it also.
However this can not be achieved over night, it took a long time for us to start believing all the negative comments being said about us so there is work to be done to change the way we see ourselves. One thing that I find helpful that I shared with the girls is positive affirmations, which means saying positive things about yourself in the mirror everyday. Looking in the mirror and speaking to yourself, is awkward in the beginning until you start to believe the things your saying. Speaking affirmations to myself, is something I have adapted to my everyday routine, so I’d like to encourage anyone else who may be struggling with this issue to try the affirmations. The more you say them, you will start to believe them, also customize the affirmations to fit your own personal struggles. I have now began to look at myself in the mirror, smile and appreciate every wrinkle, every scar, every stretch mark and embrace all this skin I live in, because all of those things show that I have gone through the fire and came out on the other side as pure gold. I’m still standing and God brought me through it all, I am a warrior, I am a survivor, I am Gods masterpiece and I AM ENOUGH!
Be Encouraged!
