posted by KWiz on Health and Wellness, Personal Development, Spiritual Growth

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God…”
–Marianne Williamson
from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

I mentioned in my last post that my husband is my champion.  In fact, he is my biggest champion, and has been so since not too long after we met on February 24, 2000.  It was when we both discovered that we were meant to be husband and wife that he began calling me “My Dream Come True.”  I remember I laughed when he said it.  And he didn’t just say it one time.  He said it repeatedly.  Of course, we say the nicest things when we’re courting…

But he said it even when difficulties in our marriage arose.  And as incredulous as I looked at him when he said it when times were good, I looked at him with even greater skepticism during trying times.  We’ve had many.  And often, I viewed those moments as being my fault.  And if we’re going through valleys and I perceived it to be my fault, then I viewed myself as inadequate, a failure, unworthy.  My attitude tanked.  It was during those times I’d ask myself, as Marianne Williamson said, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”  “Who am I to be a dream come true?”

How many times do we self-deprecate when our relationships go wrong, even sometimes end?  How many times do we blame ourselves when the bottom falls out of our lives?  How many times do we tell ourselves we don’t deserve the blessings God has graciously provided for us because we are “bad” in some way? How many times…?  For some of us, countless times.  And this was me for a very long time.

Recently, however, I began to make a turnaround.  I stopped looking in the wrong direction.  I was looking at myself as the source for all things wrong with KWiz’s world.  However, I had to finally say to myself (and really believe it), “I am a child of God.”  Not only that, I am created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), and that means a whole lot.

Taking a very close read of the biblical text in context, being created in the image of God implies power, authority, ability, creativity, dominion.  It more than implies that we have the authority and power to care for all that surrounds us on the earth.  And since God is Creator, if we are created in the image of God, we are creative beings as well.  We are originators and innovators.  We are absolutely brilliant, talented, and fabulous because God made us that way.  We just have to wrap our heads around the fact that God made us so wonderfully!  But to think God was just that good can be difficult to do sometimes.

Let us all look in the mirror and say to ourselves with conviction, “I am brilliant, I am gorgeous, I am talented, I am fabulous, I am powerful beyond measure.”  And when you say it, believe it.

Because you are.