Believe You Are Wonderfully Made!

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."

Gospel of Mark,  Chapter 11

We become what we believe. As children, many of us were told that we were “stupid,” “ugly,” “lazy” or worse. We heard phrases like “You never do anything right. You're a born loser” or “You're going to be fat just like your father's sisters" or "You're worthless. I don't know why I waste my time with you.” In these and other ways we were told by parents, teachers or other adults that we weren’t good enough. None of these lies were true, but they became our reality simply because we believed them to be true. Sadly, we believed their lies about us and we gradually became what we believed.

There's probably nothing more devastating to children than learning that the people closest to them aren't safe to be around, and this reality caused many of us great internal confusion and pain. As we grew older, many of us decided people were a threat to us and so we learned to avoid most everyone, beginning with family members. We became isolated, lonely and fearful. Many of us had no one we could turn to and trust. We had learned the unwritten rules of our households well: Don't talk, don't feel and don't trust. Eventually, to alleviate our emotional pain, we needed something we could turn to that didn’t require us to be vulnerable. That something became material things. We turned to “things” to meet the emotional needs that we no longer felt safe sharing with others. And so we nursed ourselves with alcohol, drugs, shopping, sugar, daydreaming, television, or learning to busy ourselves with everything possible.

This is how our addictive personalities began. We started building primary relationships with “things” instead of people, or we transformed ourselves from human beings into "human doings." And all because we believed the lies people told us about ourselves. Our willingness to believe these lies meant that we accepted the great shame people placed upon us; the shame of being imperfect, undesirable and unlovable. All of which led us to believe that there was something shameful about simply being our very selves.

But today is a new day. Today is the day we leave the shame behind. Today is the day we stop living the lies we were told as children, and we reclaim our lives by believing the truth about ourselves: That we are created in the image and likeness of God. Today we trade the false belief that we are hopelessly flawed for the belief that we are "perfectly imperfect." And, as a result we are filled with Good News-- the good news that we are wonderfully created, regardless of what anyone else may think or tell us! It may be a struggle for many of us to accept this good news because we have punished ourselves for so long. But if we believed we were worthless and so became worthless, today we can believe that we are priceless and gradually become priceless! We can take all of the old “loser” terminology we learned from others and replace it with our own “winner” terminology. We can trade our losing mindset for a winning mindset.

For example, we can repeat mantras to ourselves, like “I am healthy, happy, whole;” “I am handsome, smart and creative;” “I am wonderful, witty and lovable.” The more we speak well to ourselves the more we will believe what we are saying, and as we come to truly believe we are valuable, we will become valuable. We will see ourselves in the positive light that God has always seen us in. And we will gradually begin to feel valuable. The more we feel valuable, the more we will project our value to the world around us, and the more people will acknowledge our value and treat us with proper respect.

God creates only good and God is waiting to help us to transform ourselves and our lives into the greater good that God always intended for us. All we have to do is ask. Anytime we ask God for help we will receive it. We just need to believe. Let's ask God here and now to help us see ourselves in the light of truth, and let's believe that truth as it is revealed to us. The more we believe the truth that we are wonderfully made, and thus perfectly imperfect, the more our souls will shine!