I spent the day with some of the lovely women in my family, including the amazing woman who gave me life twenty-nine years ago.
It was exactly what I needed.
And I’m glad that I’ve matured enough to know that what I needed to do was go be with people who love me rather than sit alone in my room crying all day.
I told Paul the other day that I’m trying to learn to love myself better. Because I think God wants that.
When I’m really honest, I feel guilty loving myself, feel guilty even talking about loving myself, because I know. I know myself. And myself? Kind of a sh*tty person a lot of the time.
But that doesn’t matter to Jesus and so I have to figure out how to make my guilt and shame less of a focus for myself. And focus on the fact that I may not deserve it, but I’m loved by God and a lot of other wonderful people who’s love I don’t deserve either and still somehow have.
I’m not perfect, far from perfect, probably the farthest thing from perfect you’ll ever find, but that’s ok.
It’s okay to strive to be a better person, but I need to remember that I will always ultimately fail at that to some extent and by actually putting this heavy burden on myself, I’m doing the exact opposite of what God wants me to do.
So okay, I love myself.
Oof…that was hard.
And on another note…at what age do you think it is when birthdays suddenly go from being a day you look forward to celebrating to a day that reminds you of all the things you’ve failed to achieve?
Your post made me think of the verse: But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.†Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 1 Cornithians 12:9
So thankful you ended up spending time with people and are feeling better! I sometimes have a hard time on birthdays because I set these expectations (even though I try hard not to) and end up disappointed.
This year (my 30th) was the first that I felt like my birthday was a painful reminder, not really of what I failed to achieve, but of how life wasn’t what I had hoped (maybe a more passive/ victim mentality of the same thing?). That’s an interesting question…
What a great verse, thank you so much for sharing it!!