I am Wonderfully Made!
I recently went to a baby shower for someone very close to me and my family. It was so exciting to see 50-or-so women from all different age-groups, and many from far distances, all gathered to celebrate a new person joining the collective human family. Think about it! Yes, we were celebrating the mother and her entry into motherhood. However, the gifts, the games, and the well-wishes, were all for a little baby that was only 7-months old in the womb. That is a lot of love showered on a person who has not yet appeared!
The baby shower also helped me to remember my own pregnancies, and raising my own two sons to be the wonderful young men that they are today. Of course, every woman at the party who was also a mother enjoyed relishing the memories, and sharing the stories of her own pregnancy and baby-raising days. It was so natural for everyone at the party to celebrate human babies and children! Babies are little miracles who bring joy to the world, we seemed to be saying that day.
Yet, how often do we share that same love and appreciation for the miracle of human life with ourselves? It seems so natural to unconditionally love a new baby, but do we extend that same love and compassion to ourselves?
So often the inner-dialogue of my own mind is negative and self-condemning. “I should have done that better!” or “Why can’t you lose weight?!” or “How could you have wracked-up so much credit card debt?!” I am not alone in dealing with my “inner-critic," as many best-selling books and popular articles have been written on the topic. Clearly, by the evidence I saw at the baby-shower, I must have been loved, and celebrated too when I was a new human about to enter the planet. So, why do I endure such hard criticism from my inner-critic?
Perhaps, it is because I have forgotten my own miraculous nature. In Psalm 139:13-14, the Bible reminds us that all people are walking miracles:
“You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works!
My very self you know.”
All of God’s creation is wonderful. God knows each human completely according to this Biblical passage, and He says we are “wonderful.”
The baby shower helped me to remember how loved I was as a baby. It also showed me how much love I already have for a new baby, about to be born, who I don't even know yet. If I have been given tremendous love as a baby, and if I have the capacity to feel tremendous love for others now, then I am also capable of giving love and compassion to myself.
So, I am inviting you to join me in a new exercise of self-love and compassion. Whenever the inner-critic rears her nasty head, let’s combat her negative words with the Biblical mantra, “I am wonderfully made.” The Word of God is powerful, as promised in Hebrews 4:12, “The word of God is living and effective… able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” By reminding myself that “I am wonderfully made,” I can enjoy the love and compassion that is my birthright from God. By being filled with holy self-love, we can all share more love, kindness in the world. By reminding ourselves daily that we are “wonderfully made” miracles, we can actually do miracles in our lives too.
