Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I even worth it? These were the questions that lingered in my mind for such a long time. I never truly understood my worth. My worth in God. The struggles with my identity, my appearance, my level of intelligence, my relationships, my job as this or as that, never seemed enough. Not necessarily to others as I hardly openly expressed my thoughts and feelings, but definitely to me. Struggling with who I was and dealing with the uncertainty of who I wanted to be was eating me up inside. I knew that I wasn’t okay. Daily I would mask what was going on inside of me. I would steer my attention to making others feel good so that they wouldn’t feel or experience what I already was. See, I believe that God gave me a spirit of encouragement and love towards others, but I misused it as a way to hide ME. I now know that encouraging others, while I put myself down internally, was not a sincere act, though I thought it was.
In the the most beautiful book I know, the Bible, it states the following: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”-Matthew 22:39

Often times we struggle with love your neighbor, BUT, what about the struggle with loving ourselves? I learned that true love in my heart is not only based on the love that I “display” towards others, it is the love that I learn to display with myself, so that I can genuinely express it to others. I know we’ve heard this phrase many times, “how can you love others if you don’t love yourself”. It is one of the realest phrases I have ever heard because I’ve experienced it. I truly believe that God calls us to be selfless, but I also truly believe that God also calls us to be ministers of our bodies, our minds, our soul, and our hearts. My new motto: “I will minister to me and then minister to other people.”

I have learned that I am enough in Jesus. That I am enough! The road to get here has been so hard with a lot of wavering back and forth. I still find myself at times questioning things I shouldn’t, but I quickly revert to positive thinking. I’ve also learned to recognize when the enemy has decided to play with my emotions and remind me of the things that God has delivered me from. Again, it’s taken a long time and I’m definitely not perfect at it, but God is giving me the strength to withstand more and more each day.

One of my main practices is with one of my favorite verses from the Bible: You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you. -Song of Solomon 4:7 – Thank you to my Maker, God, for loving me and creating flawlessly in him.

I say one of my best practices because as those feelings and thoughts begin to creep in, I am reminded of what God really thinks of me. He molded me and created me in his image, and every little part of me is a special design by him. God is not a maker on trial, God is a creator that makes no mistakes. 

Once I learned that I cannot truly love others while secretly disliking and not loving myself, I learned what true love is. A love that travels beyond the boundaries we set, that fully embraces God’s miracles like sending his son to die and live again, so that we may live. A love that was carefully crafted to create the heavens and the earth, a love that I need in order to live.

One of the biggest slaps in my face was professing my love for Jesus while placing  his love for me in a box that could not breathe. Speaking about God and his love for humanity and forgetting that I am part of that equation. I was insulting God and speaking unbiasedly about a topic worth speaking about with all certainty. 

It is often hard to speak about the things in my heart that made me cry and hide for so many years, but I know that what I go through is a journey worth having and used for someone else to heal from. 

If this is you and you are canceling yourself from the love equation that God created, don’t. You are the biggest part. Learn to love yourself sincerely. Every part of you and who you are is worth it. You are enough! You are more than enough. May God open our hearts and minds to his truth in us and may we walk with certainty knowing and understanding that we are worth it because God says we are. If God says we are worth it, YOU and no one around you has the permission to tell you differently. 

God bless you! 

I love you! 

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From your sister and friend,

Neivis Paulino

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