It’s never too late to be what you might have been. – GEORGE ELIOT
Never accept anything less than you deserve. Remember you teach people how to treat pyou.
Self-respect demands respect unconsciously.
It took a while for me to understand self respect. It is confidence and pride in your self; a feeling you have in behaving with dignity and honor. It’s not self-centeredness. Not self glorifying such as your positions, possessions, and accomplishments. These are important but self respect is so much deeper than what can be seen. It’s knowing your values and your worth. It flows out of your true self. Self respect cannot be acted out. It’s the part of you that is most in the “image of God.”
Someone said if you believe you were created in the image of God then live as if you do. This pose a question: What’s that? What’s God’s attributes? Is he an angry God? And why they say ‘God is good’? What’s so good about a God who allows too much suffering, diseases like Covid 19, evil and greedy men and women to reign in a world riddled with poverty, hunger, killing of the innocents, turning a blind eye or looking down on people. Child abuse? Human trafficking? Injustices? Oh the list is long…
I used to blame God for everything that didn’t do me any good. I believed he was so unfair. The poor became poorer. The rich became richer. No one seems to treat you without hidden agenda. Then I read psalms and understood. The psalmist cried, “I sought the LORD, and He heard me and took my fears away. I began to see he’s beautiful, good, kind and compassionate. He loved us first. And all the pain and suffering a mlei ‘lochuir a renguk ma medak el mo chemau ngii meng mlo diak medakt.”
C.S. Lewis write, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures , speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pain, his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Why? Because he loves you so much he won’t let you fall into numbness without finding life… and live an abundant life now, not later.
Love of self begins with gratitude, not complaining because of pain and suffering but ask: What part of my life are you working in me through this experience. I ask you LORD to search me and know me and reveal to me where you are working in my life and grant to me the grace of your healing, deliverance, your holiness, and a deep and true repentance. I desire to love me as you love me so I can love you and others as you love.