Love Yourself.

The second night's session was focused on loving yourself. The speaker, Reggie Dabbs, did a great job of covering this topic and to me, it was the most beneficial and the one that hit home the most. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this, though. Being a teenager - in particular, a teenage girl, in these days isn't that great for your self-esteem.

In today's society, we aren't very good at this. Everywhere you look, there are perfect images of men and women, subtly airbrushed and photoshopped to absolute, beautiful perfection. You look at these, and then you look at the mirror. Not impressive by society's standards. This is where this session comes in. God created you as a perfect masterpiece, a unique work of art thought of by Him as exactly what He wanted you to be. The Skit Guys did a bit on this, called The Chisel. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. Go to YouTube and search it. You won't be disappointed.

Another part of this concept of loving yourself is accepting your past. I know that I've messed up, as I'm sure everyone else has too. Reggie said himself that he had a crazy past, starting with a teenage unwed mother who needed money to pay for her 3 kids and so slept with a man for some money. She became pregnant and tried to abort, but then had the baby and gave him away - and this was Reggie. He had a hard time coming to terms with this, but eventually did with God's help. We all have something in our past we don't want and may hate. Reggie said 2 quotes that I absolutely loved. He said, "You can't change your past, but you can change your future." and "You can't change your past, but you can change what you think about your past." That's so true.

It's late, and so this is my stopping point for this post. There's so much more I'd like to write about, but simply not enough time, energy, or words.

This is my NR challenge for this post. Stop believing what the world wants you to think about yourself. Stop thinking that you can never be smart, pretty, or good enough. Stop thinking that your past will ruin your life and it'll never get any better. Go with what God wants you to think. You're perfect as you are; after all, God doesn't create junk. Your past will always be there, but your future is there for the taking with God to change it in magnificant ways.

I'll leave you with this quote, that I'll probably do a post on sometime.

"The same God that was there for you then is the same God that is there for you now."

It's true. He's here, waiting for you to embrace Him so He can let you know how amazing you are.

Are you in?

-Kimber.