I’d love to have all the hours back that I obsessed about the things I didn’t like about myself. My hair. My body. My nose. My “flaws”…real or imagined. Can you imagine if we never, ever looked in the mirror and hated something we saw? Oh…what I really hate is that I put my faith in someone who judged me by my appearance. I really hate that I saw my self-worth through someone else’s lens. For…far…too…long.

One of the wonderful things about rapidly approaching Medicare age is the ability to see myself as I truly am. I’m a slightly overweight, active grandma with great hair and pretty feet. I was talking with Mr. FixIt this week when we went on our little trip. I was telling him about a time in my life when I really hated who I was. Then I grew to hate that I couldn’t speak up and change the situation I was in that contributed to it. He looked at me and smiled. He said, “Well, you sure are a strong, opinionated woman now. You don’t take crap off of anyone!” My heart exploded. He GETS me!

Every day, I focus on my word of the year. Presence. I am not that naive young girl who went into relationships looking for a knight in shining armor. I am not that willowy young thing who could eat anything I wanted and not gain an ounce. I don’t have the stamina that I had when I was 30…40…50….heck, 60! But, I love who I am. I am more of the woman in Proverbs 31 than I ever have been.

Pastor Justin illustrated God’s forgiveness last Sunday in a way that will forever change how I look at myself. He was sitting at a table with a bottle of water. He always keeps a small towel nearby because it’s quite hot up there under the lights and he has a tendency to get fired up. He was talking about how we are made new when we accept Christ in our hearts. He died for our sins. That means, they are taken away. The old is gone.

He covered the water bottle with the towel. “This is what happens when we are forgiven.”

He pulled the towel back a bit. “The enemy wants us to keep looking back. He keeps reminding us of who we were. But that’s not who we are now.”

He picked up the bottle, totally wrapped in the towel and said, “When we’ve been saved, God looks at us and sees Christ…not the old, beat up, soiled version of us…but the Christ-loving version.”

My eyes swelled with tears when the full realization hit me that I don’t have to carry around all that baggage…all those burdens…all that self-loathing. It is not prideful to love and appreciate yourself as a child of God.

I like my feet. I like my smile. I like my compassionate heart. I like the way my hair is graying with natural streaks. I used to pay a lot of money for that. I love the way every cell in my body was made new when I was saved. Appreciate yourself. Love yourself. Not in an arrogant, self-centered, narcissistic way. You are the only YOU there is in the world. The only YOU that has ever been or ever will be. God made you just this way with the very gifts the world needs that only YOU can give. Since scripture tells us to love others as we love ourselves the opposite must also be true. Love yourself as you love others. ❤

“We love because he first loved us.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4:19‬ ‭NIV‬‬