Destined Grace 02
A journey into accepting God’s love for you
Perspective
I was at a Hot Pilates class the other day and as I walked in I locked eyes with a pretty girl, her body was lean, her abs looked photoshopped, her arms were toned, you guys she basically looked like she walked out of a photo shoot from Self Magazine and promptly made her way into this studio. A model…just perfect.
When she looked at me, I immediately thought, she’s judging me, she’s thinking to herself, “What is this girl doing here? She won’t even be able to make it half way through this class.” And in that moment I decided, I wasn’t even going to glance at her let alone talk to her.
After one of the most grueling work outs I had done in a long time, I went into the locker room area, and while washing my hands I saw from the corner of my eye, the model girl staring directly at me, now I don’t know about you but sometimes I have a tendency to jump to conclusions when someone begins to stare. So almost immediately I thought to myself she was judging my outfit and didn’t like it. To my surprise…the girl looked at me, smiled and asked, “Where did you get that bra from? I love it!” I felt like an idiot, it took me a second to regroup my thoughts as I looked down and said, “Oh! This? I got this at Marshalls the other day! It’s great” Needless to say we ended up swapping some stories on some great places to buy cheaper athletic wear and great finds on amazon. No, we didn’t exchange numbers and we didn’t go shopping together the next day, but it did get me thinking that day, all day actually, about perspective.
Not everything is about you, and I will always be honest with you guys on here…..I have had trouble accepting this.
Self-preoccupation makes us assume that every rejection, every awkward interaction, every short text, is about us. Suddenly every relationship we have is based on our worth and what we bring to the table and it starts magnifying our flaws because we start thinking about them more often.
We’ve all had a moment that’s scarred us, comments made from our closest friends or relatives that hurt us to our core and we never really could get over it.
“She would be beautiful if she wasn’t so fat”
“She works too much, she must not be a good mom”
“She’s doesn’t have good form she will never go pro and be a real athlete.”
“She doesn’t look like she belongs, she probably hasn’t found her calling yet”
I mean the list goes on and on...so we fixate on these comments and try to better and measure ourselves to please and be accepted by other people who in turn are doing the same thing!
We can become so consumed with ourselves that we think everything is about us.
Someone once said, “In reality other people liking you is a bonus, you liking yourself is the real prize.” There is so much truth in this quote. Mostly because I feel that one of the biggest reasons we have such a negative perspective on how others view us is that we are our worst critic! We have a hard time accepting our flaws, and we have built up so many insecurities.
Ladies, we haven’t truly believed that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, we start to question our identity.
We forget whose we are, and we become obsessed with who we are.
Isaiah 43:4 says “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”
He loves you! You are precious in His sight, there is nothing about you that He doesn’t love.
Our identity should not be found in what designer clothes we wear, what degree we have, the title on our business card, the friend on instagram, the mounds of book piled up in our room, our identity should be found in Him.
God loves the real you, He embraces you.
In John 15:16 God states, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.”
Embrace God’s love for you today and walk in the abundance of His love and lay down your perspective of yourself and everyone else’s expectations and know you are perfect just how you are, where you are. And remember you are His masterpiece.
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”Ephesians 2:10