"If you had a friend that treated you the way you treat yourself and said the things you say about yourself, how long would you stay friends with them?"

How do we view ourselves?

How does God view us?


For many people, these two answers are different.  We need to learn to love ourselves, because we are who we are, and that is who we will stay! :)

Just think:  what if someone close to you (let's say, your mother) decided to make you a quilt.  And let's also say that she's not a very good sewer-seamstress lady (or whatever you wanna call them!), but she does her best and over the course of a few months and getting some help from a few neighbor ladies, she makes you a beautiful quilt.

You can tell that she is so proud of her work and how the quilt turned out, and you know just how excited she is to give it to you to take with you down to your first year at college.

You got all that pictured in your head?

Okay.....so as you have already guessed, this happened to me.  My mother (who doesn't sew) decided she loved me enough to make me a quilt to take down to college to use as my bed spread :)  She worked many hours on it and got some helpful hints from different ladies in our ward.  It was a stressful project for her!  But in the end, it was the perfect gift.

She finished the strips! Now to sew them together :)

Continuing on with my first story however, let's say that on the other hand, unlike me, you didn't like the quilt that was made for you.  When your mother gave it to you--despite knowing her excitement about it--you picked it apart saying things like, "It's too bright.", "I thought it was going to be bigger.", "I don't like the way you did this part."......etc. etc. etc.  Basically, you completely found fault with almost every thing about it.  You could imagine this might break your mother's heart or at least make her very, very sad.  After all the love and time she put into it, if you just pulled it apart critiquing in and not even saying anything good about it, I could image she would be sad!

I'd like to compare this to how God feels about us, when we continue to tear ourselves apart each day saying things like, "I'm fat."  "I wish I could look like him/her."  "Why can't I be prettier?"  "What's wrong with me?" "I'm so ugly." "I wish I had darker skin." "I wish my eyes were blue." (I think you get the point I'm trying to make.)  

God made each of us, His children, so unique and beautiful.  He loves each of us. It makes Him sad when we are not grateful for the gift He so graciously gave us: our body.  He wants us to be happy and be grateful for that gift. We need to take care of and love our body because it's the only real place we (our spirits) have to live! 

I am guilty of not always being grateful for the beautiful Daughter of God I was made to be.  I need to work on it.  I hope all of us will do just that: work to love ourselves for who we are.  Just like I loved the beautiful quilt my mama made for me, I need to love the beautiful body I was given to house my spirit on this earth.

August 2010: With my new quilt before heading down to SUU