I love three year olds.
When I give Reese a compliment, which happens quite often, (words of affirmation love language, anyone?) she never has any doubt about what I tell her.
The other day I said “Reese, you’re so awesome.”
Her response?
“Yes! I AM awesome.”
I think I probably believed I was awesome at some point but it seems like the further away you get from three years old, the more convincing it takes to really think this about yourself.
In our culture, we celebrate self-deprecation by calling it words like “real” and “authentic”. Showing your true self involves airing your dirty laundry and we applaud as we watch others scrounge around in the depths, mostly because we feel better about our own dirt if we see other people’s dirt.
I have no problem being real.
What I do have a problem with is having the expectation that your real must look like mine in order for it to actually be real. Are you still with me? That was a mouth full!
I ran across a blog the other day making fun of lifestyle bloggers and their pretty white kitchens and fresh flowers peaking out of their designer bags in the passenger seat of their cars. She went on to talk about her disastrous car and dingy kitchen and how they actually lived there so that’s why it looked like that. It just made my heart heavy y’all.
That post didn’t come from a place of confidence in enjoying her crazy and messy living spaces. It came from a place of insecurity. Rather than celebrating, admiring, and lifting up, she chose to criticize, call out, and condemn.
Let’s not be that. We are called to more.
Let’s not only believe that we are awesome… let’s commit to finding and applauding the awesome in each other.
Here’s the thing: It is a compliment to your Creator to believe He did a marvelous job on you. He believes you are awesome because He made you and He doesn’t make anything not awesome.
Loving and celebrating who you are and where you are is a discipline that’s well worth the effort. It involves not allowing bullying inside your own mind. The Bible calls this renewal and we are advised to do it over and over again all day every day.
It also involves having people in your life who not only believe you are awesome but tell you that you are. It took me waaaaaaaay too many years to learn that if a person in my life was not lifting me up, it was completely ok for me to create distance.
I want to be more like my Reese in a million different ways. But I know it’s only a matter of time before the voices in my baby’s mind begin to try to convince her that she’s worthless. My prayer is that she will do what you and I should do….
Command the voices surrounding you and the voices in your mind to listen to the Father as He says,
You.
Are.
Awesome.
Grab onto that truth and take it with you today!
Happy Wednesday, sweet friend! And I really do think you’re awesome 🙂
Laura