We are continuing with our 30-day Loving Yourself Challenge with Alejandra Tash.  If you haven’t been blessed by these devotions, you haven’t been reading them carefully!  Let’s see what Alejandra brings us today.

Hating Yourself Is an Ugly Job

1 Corinthians 13:4

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Hello there again! I hope and pray all is well with you, ahhh we’ve had quite some homework in the past two weeks. We went from uncovering what dwelt in our hearts week one, to then confronting it.  Week two, we spent some time on how Jesus loves us, and how His attitude towards the cross should be the same attitude we have towards ourselves. Last week’s challenge not only challenged us to uncover how God loves us but also how to apply it towards loving ourselves. Today I wanted to touch on the biblical verse so famously recited by many on their wedding day. That’s right! Let’s get married to ourselves (Just kidding)! We have probably heard this verse many times, even in non-Christian weddings. But I want to cover the first two lines in this verse, “Love is patient, love is kind.” So let’s dive right into it! Shall we?

Patient

To begin, being patient with this journey is essential.  What does that mean?  Well even though it is a 30-day challenge I must confess it took me about three to four months to really understand the concept.  Boy! I haven’t even begun to cover half of the things God has been showing me. I know that 28 years of damage cannot be covered in three months, let alone one. I understand that if I love myself, I need to be patient with my own process in order to reap the harvest.  As I walk this path called “life,” I must not rush or be so hard on myself for not being the masterpiece society paints me to be. When I say masterpiece, I mean I cannot reach perfection – in fact, I will never reach perfection. I had my own personal goals that I hadn’t met yet and because of this, I began to be so hard on myself.  I would think of myself as too stupid to achieve certain things, so quite frankly when I got my Associates degree, I couldn’t believe I had actually done so. This standard I set for myself, closed many opportunities and kept me unaware of God’s blessings for my life. I was always on the run, and never took the time to say “man girl, you’ve come far.” I called achievement what society says it was. I would never take into account that in the school of life, God held a graduation for my milestones in Him. Now aware, I’ve begun to question so many things and He has given me answers.  I’ve allowed myself to be rerouted in what and where He wants me to be. When we are patient in our process, we allow the methods of transportation God uses called “shortcomings” to deliver us into His will.

Where we are now, is a place where your own truth might be ugly. You might be in a painful place where, like me, you might think, “But if I am so special to God, why would He allow me to go through so much?” Imagine your own “before” and “after” in a photo shoot.  Today is you “before.”  But you have to know that there will be an “after!”  When this “after” photo comes you will have endured and achieved your desired end.

The uglier the place, the better the house! Have you ever watched those shows where they “flip” a house; making an UGLY place, just beautiful? This is what God is getting ready to do with you — make your ashes into beauty! He’s going to take the thing that looks like it could never be saved and make it beautiful.  Knowing this gives us hope and teaches us to love the place of change because in the end there will be a version of you. Loving you means that we are willing to work on ourselves and patience is key.

We need to enjoy the ride and appreciate EVERY part of our process even the valley.  Loving you requires such diligence and perseverance that, even as you fail over and over again, you must have faith that the end result is much better than what the middle looks like. Working on you, achieving you, requires patience. Achieving you? To elaborate, “achieving you” is a term I made up in my mind in which I dared myself to be that person I always wanted to be. Did you know that all of us have a version of ourselves in our hearts and minds that we think we will never achieve? Well, I want to achieve becoming me and that means I need make some changes.

Ready To Clean Up My Act

Love Is Kind

Loving me means to be kind to me, it means loving myself enough to not harm me, to want nothing but good for me. I struggled with this aspect, because to some this meant being vain, but it is far from being vain! Being kind to myself means, not allowing others’ opinions of me to affect me or even torture myself with their presence. For example, I had family members who would say to me, “you will never amount to anything,” “God will not bless you.”  Being kind to me requires me not joining them when they bad-mouthed me, but I did…

“I am so fat…

“I am really stupid…

“ugh, I hate myself right now…

I hate how this fits me…”

I would call myself names and around family and friends.  What’s worse is they would let me.

The question remains, what happens when I stop letting the view others have of me, even my view of me, dictate how I see myself? I soon accept the newness God is creating in me.

A huge part of changing the way you see yourself is also to change those you surround yourself with. You need those who bring out the best in you, those who love you and encourage growth. Jesus hung out with 12 disciples for most of his ministry on earth, but he had only three in His inner circle and, mind you, they weren’t even His family. In fact, He chose wisely the company He kept. We tend to believe that because “family” is blood-related we should still hang around the toxic behavior they contribute to our lives. Though I will elaborate more on the company you keep in a later blog, I have to say that I struggled so much in the area of choosing my inner circle.  Changing my surroundings allowed me to see the truth of God’s word in me. Silencing all the toxicity around me allowed me to hear the only voice that matters… God’s.  I changed the way I saw me, in order to attract those who thought the very best of me.

You may ask, “Alejandra how do I change how I see myself when the place I’m at is so ugly?” Well, admitting where you are is the first step to recovery! Cheesy I know, but you wouldn’t believe how much it took me to admit that I wasn’t happy. I was living a lie. When I heard, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made,” it didn’t mean anything to me, I didn’t believe any of the promises of God. I just couldn’t because I didn’t believe in me. I didn’t love me.

Let’s Pray

“Father today I give you all our anxieties, I give you all fears, and doubts and I thank you for giving me the honor of being here today. Father, thank you for every single day that you’ve given me on this earth and I ask that you forgive me for rejecting your truth about love and your truth about me.  Today I ask, Lord, that you enter our hearts the way only you can do, and revamp us and our attitude towards ourselves. I ask that you give us a new heart and switch out our heart of stone. Replace all contrary feelings and bring forth your truth in our life. I ask that you erase all negative feelings we may have about ourselves and that you bring to us a new mind that is patient with our process. Jesus, I ask that you also remove our own definition of love, and let us receive the accurate one. Help us, love ourselves and be patient with, kind to, enduring with, persevering with, and protective of ourselves.  In Jesus’ Name, I pray. Amen.”

This week’s challenge:

I would love if you could take the whole week to read  2 Corinthians 10.  In this passage read how Paul was defending his ministry.  Those he was ministering to judged his appearance and thought his sermons weren’t good enough.  Focus on verses  7-11.  What areas of your life do you try to adjust so you can please others?  Then look at the very last verses, 17 and 18, and set some reasonable goals for yourself.  Also uncover the areas where you might be just a little too hard on yourself, too self-critical, and/or not rooting for you enough!  On your social media pages, use the hashtag #RootingForMe, and a picture that promotes self-love, in an area you are particularly proud of. Once you change your mind about you, the areas that you aren’t so happy with will change and how you view them. Ask God to help you be patient with you and your shortcomings, and you’ll see a new found attitude in what you’ve accomplished and tenacity to accomplish even more.

-Alejandra

Thank you so much, Alejandra.  I loved the part of your devotional where you talked about loving yourself and making sure that you have the right people around you.  Sometimes we don’t think that the people around us reflect our view of ourselves but it definitely does.  Thank you.  If you need additional help or have questions you can email us or comment below.  Follow us on Instagram and on Facebook @throughthewinters and on Twitter @thruthewinters.  We love you.