Hey gals!

For several years now I’ve dearly loved receiving inspirational and encouraging emails from an online friend, Melissa. She always has a sweet spirit and practical words to help me keep on keepin’ on as I go through the daily ups and downs of being a woman, wife, and mother. Today I would like to share a recent message that Melissa allowed me to use here:

Evening all…

The Lord reminded me of something today that I tend to forget. See, I’m not always too keen on myself and often it shows. I’ll put my own needs way back on the burners. Of course being a mother tends to cause us to do that. We settle our family’s needs before we attend to ours. For the most part, that’s a good thing. We’re supposed to be tenders, the ones who mend hurts and are leaned on. The problem comes when we begin to dislike ourselves. When we’ve become so accustomed to looking away from our own needs, that they become abhorrent to us. And as our appearance might suffer—gaining weight, our clothes showing the wear of motherhood—we think less of our potential.

I told my husband I was going to talk to you all about this. My phrase to him was that I was going to talk about “Loving Myself No Matter What”…and he stopped me right there. He said that by tagging ‘no matter what’ onto that phrase, I’m limiting the love I’ll give myself. Think about it. We should love ourselves PERIOD. But we don’t. We say we will when we get our attitudes in control, or when we can keep the house clean, or when the weight is gone, or when our hair looks better, or when we have mothering down pat, or simply when we think we deserve it. We put stipulations on our affection for ourselves. Wrong.

There are some Christians who will pooh-pooh the idea of self-love, thinking it’s plain old egoism rearing its head. Women will go without adornments, or make-up or scent because it’s calling attention to themselves. They’ll allow the world to enjoy personal treats, but seem to enjoy the role of martyr. Or do they?

The Bible says for us to “Love your neighbor as yourself” but maybe that’s the problem. Maybe if we were more caring for our personal needs, maybe we’d all get along a bit better.

With love, truly—to you.
Melissa

To join Melissa’s email list (you just get her occasional emails, no messages from others in the group) send a blank email to themothershour-join@associate.com .