Back in February my daughter got really sick which resulted in us spending the weekend laying around the house, watching movies and vegging. During that weekend I didn’t shower because my every waking moment was spent making sure Malea was comfortable, had what she needed, etc. On Sunday my husband got up, showered and went to church, and I stayed home with Malea, to take care of her. Having not showered for a couple of days, and a few sleepless nights, did not leave me feeling very beautiful. But when my husband got home, he looked at me and said, “You’re so beautiful. Malea isn’t your mommy so beautiful.”
Feeling as gross as I did, I kind of laughed his comment off but later that day the Lord convicted me and said, “If Malea were in your shoes would you want her to laugh it off, or would you want her to know she’s beautiful?”
This got me thinking about the countless conversations I’ve had with friends about how they don’t believe they’re beautiful, they don’t love themselves and they don’t believe it’s important. However, I beg to differ.
In Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, she says it so perfectly,
Are you the adult you want your child to grow up and be? If we want our children to love and accept who they are, our job is to love and accept who we are.”
As parents how many of us would say we want our daughters to grow up and feel ugly and unwanted? How many of you want your sons to grow up to be insecure, a shadow of a man?
None of you!
So why then is that the message we are telling them?
Joseph Chilton Pearce says,
What we are teaches [our children] more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.”
I definitely believe there’s power in praying identity over our children (you can read how I pray for my daughter HERE) but what’s also incredibly powerful is walking in your identity and showing your kids what it looks like to find identity in the Lord and not in the world.
How can we raise confident children if we aren’t confident ourselves?
How can we raise kids who know who they are in Christ, if we don’t know who we are?
How will our kids end up strong if all they ever see modeled is weakness?
How will our kids grow up to know they are beautiful/handsome, if they are taught by our actions, to ignore compliments and believe the opposite?
This is exactly why it is so important for you to know exactly who you are and to love yourself, exactly the way you are.
I know what it’s like to feel insecure and to hate who you are because I spent the first 28 years of my life living from that place. But, through inner healing and deliverance God changed me. He also showed me how sad it makes Him feel when we choose to hate something He created so perfectly.
God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
We are created in the image of God! Just the knowledge of that alone should be enough for us to love who we are! But the enemy is a great deceiver and he has lied to us, telling us we are ugly, we are fat – ultimately that we aren’t worthy of love. Here’s what God’s word has to say about that –
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10
“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart…” Jeremiah 1:5
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” Ephesians 1:4
“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
Exactly the way you are – God loves you so much that He sent His son to die for you. He set you apart and loved you when you were still being formed in your mom’s tummy! Your Father loves you so much that He chose you and sees you without fault!
The enemy will lie to you over and over again and tell you that you aren’t beautiful, or worthy of love because of X, Y and Z, but those are lies!
The word of the Lord is what is true, nothing else.
I know the lies feel truer than the truth because you have believed them for so long and because the enemy keeps playing them in your mind, all day, every day, but there is power in God’s word. The more you rehearse the truth over and over again in your mind, the less true the lies will feel and you will “overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
You might not feel beautiful, but that doesn’t mean you’re not. You might not feel worthy of love, but it doesn’t make that true. I want you to try something, try believing the truth, instead of the lie. You might have to fake it at first but the more you receive the truth (whether it feels true or not) the more it will become true to you.
I might not feel like I look amazing after 2 days of not showering and cleaning up vomit but I promise you that next time I will receive my husband’s compliment because I know in my heart it’s true and I want my daughter to see my confidence so that she too will grow up to be confident.
Even after all this, if you still don’t believe you’re worthy, then don’t change for you, change for your kids, for their futures, and for who you want to see them become.
