I need to choose to be happy and stop punishing myself for things Christ already paid the price for.

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5: 44)

Sometimes the person who is the hardest on us is ourselves.  A child was overheard to say, “She can be happy. She just doesn’t want to.” Whoa! Such wisdom from the mouth of a child. So why do we sabotage ourselves? It isn’t only in abusive situations that a child grows up to feel that they are undeserving of success, health or the love of Christ or the love of anyone else.  I’m far too busy ferreting out my own phobias to worry about yours, but we all seem to develop some problem that keeps us from being the best that we can be.

Back in the old days when I attended school in that little one roomed school house in rural Illinois it was not uncommon for a teacher to paddle a child. I received a paddling from my teacher every week on my backside with a varnished wooden paddle for missed spelling words. It may or may not be the reason I cannot spell today, but it reinforced the idea that I couldn’t learn. In high school one of my teachers took me aside and told me that I needed to become a nurse. But I can’t spell and I only have C average, I argued. “You can overcome that,” she said, and I began to believe in myself.  All through nursing school I carried a little pocket dictionary with me, and every time I had to write the word Pneumonia I had to look it up. (Thank you spell check. I still can’t spell it.)

It has only been in the latter half of my life that I have been able to pray for myself. I could pray for others to get well, or prosper and be rich, but to pray for myself seemed selfish and conceited. I am learning that I am the enemy and that Jesus Christ loves me and I should love me as well. He took upon himself my sins and died for me. Can I throw that away? If I believe in him I must also believe in myself and be the best that I can be. I need to choose to be happy and stop punishing myself for things Christ already paid the price for. It is a gift and I should accept it and not let his atonement be in vain.