EMBRACE YOUR GREATNESS
Have you ever stopped to think about how great you are? Not in a boastful way but in a grateful way? Or, just in awe at how great you were made? Have you ever stopped to think of all the things that are great about you? Sometimes I just give thanks for very small and seemingly insignificant things that I feel blessed I was given. For example, I think I was given great hair. I have naturally curly, thick hair. It grows fast and it tolerates a lot of abuse from me and I have only a few gray hairs at age 48. I know so many people who spend a lot of time fixing their hair every day. I do next to nothing to mine. I wash it (not every day), put conditioner in and run my fingers all through it in the shower with the conditioner in then squeeze it dry. I don’t even wash the conditioner out. Sometimes I put other product in it because I get the frizzies at times, but other than that I am pretty much done. I call that great. I didn’t always think I had great hair. When I was younger I hated it. Almost everyone else had straight hair. I thought it looked so pretty. I would try to get mine straight. I even went so far as to have my stepmom iron it on the ironing board a few times!!! Obviously, this was before I knew about straightening irons or flat irons or whatever they are called! I also tried getting a perm one time in hopes of making all of my curls uniform instead of just doing whatever they wanted. If anyone reading is old enough to remember Chaka Kahn then you have an idea of what my hair looked like after the perm! I had to wear it in a ponytail for 3 months while it all grew out. As I got older I realized that I was lucky to have this curly hair. I realized how easy it was for me and that I simply did not have the patience to deal with trying to fix my hair every day. I think someone knew what they were doing when they gave me this hair! When I get it cut I tell them I cannot have a style that requires more than 5 minutes in the morning because I know I will never do it. And, if I’m being honest, I can’t ever reproduce the look they do in the salon anyway! It is some sort of trickery I think. I have learned to embrace that this is a great thing about me and I should be thankful for it.
I also think I was given good eyelashes (not as great as my brother’s but still). I don’t wear mascara enough for anyone to notice them but if I do wear it they really look good. My point is there are a lot of things about each of us that are great and we probably take for granted.
Even many of the tragedies or struggles that we have faced in our lives sometimes turn out to be great things. They may not seem great when you are in the midst of them, but sometimes they are the very things that needed to happen in your life to get you to the next place in life. Sometimes we just won’t do what we know we need to without something significant happening. For example, if my mother had not set the house on fire with me and my brother in it I may not have walked away from her and sought out my Dad and stepmom. Even though I thought at the time that it was the worst thing ever when your mother tries to burn the house down with you in it, it was going to take something big for me to walk away from her despite knowing she had serious problems. It was hard to get past knowing that my mother told me she didn’t love me and in fact had decided to kill herself and me and my brother, but moving in with my Dad and stepmom was one of the best things that ever happened to us. (I will follow up in the next post with the story behind all of this.) It led my brother and me in the right direction in our lives. It led us to parents that truly wanted us and would be there for us. It led us to God. Once I knew God it was easy to see that I was made great. It is easy to see that some of the things that have happened in my life have made me who I am and made my greatness. I do think that my brother and I would have landed on our feet in the long run because we were blessed with being emotionally stable people. We both seem to have a knack for letting go of things, moving past things and not having regrets. We are both able to see the good in situations and what we can learn from them. But I am sure that moving in with our Dad helped us along that path quicker.
So, next time you are feeling a little down or doubting yourself or letting the Negative Nelly inside you take over the conversation, just take a moment to think of your own greatness and embrace it. You are unique in your greatness and it cannot be just like anyone else. You just have to be open to seeing your greatness. You have to change the conversation going on in your head sometimes and not let Negative Nelly take over. Believe in your greatness!
Have a great day!
Kristi