Image by Barbara Jackson from Pixabay
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day I ended up in the hospital receiving four pints of blood. The cause was what I term the period from hell. I did not go to the hospital until all color drained from my face, I could hardly sit up let alone stand, and my heart pounded so much that I could hear it in my ears. I waited too long because I was used to not taking proper care of myself.
Being sexually abused as a small child left me with strong feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy. When you can’t even muster up a bit of like, let alone love, for yourself it is hard to pay attention to negative changes in your body. That is the place where I found myself last year and it led to nearly dying.
But I didn’t die. I lived. I remember sitting in the emergency room after seeing the doctor. I was in a wheelchair, which was an incredibly humbling place for me. Despite being small in stature, I have always been strong but ignoring my body left me weak. As I sat in the wheelchair, I started thinking about heaven and seeing Jesus face-to-face. I started thinking about loved ones I would see. Peace came over me.
Holy Spirit spoke to me with these two thoughts: It is not your time. I have much work for you to do. There was a moment of regret because the mere idea of heaven and how wonderful it will be brought so much joy. Then I remembered that God has called me to minister to the broken, the traumatized.
Learning to love me
Every day since May 2020, since lockdown, I practice tapping (emotional freedom technique) through The Tapping Solution app. In November, I did the eight-day You Are Enough challenge. It stirred up those feelings of inadequacy, of not being enough. This week, I started the challenge again. I decided to love myself even though I have spent a lifetime not loving myself, and even hating myself at times.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made, as Psalm 139 tells me. I am one who God came down in the form of a man and died on a cross to redeem me. I am dearly loved by God. I am not someone worthy of self-hatred or self-dislike. I am more than enough in God.
And so are you. If you feel like you are not enough, if you do not love yourself, consider writing down every day that you choose to like and love yourself. Consider taking up the practice of tapping and doing the eight-day challenge.
You are loved and you are more than enough!