Fearless Friday - Acceptance

Acceptance. 

It's such a big word!

For this Fearless Friday, I decided to face my fear in accepting somethings I've been scared to accept.

Love - 

You'd think it'd be easy to accept love at all times, but I find it hard to accept love sometimes.

I find myself often working for love. I think and feel like someone won't love me unless I'm perfect. Therefore, I find myself bending over backwards for them to receive their love and acceptance that they would have given me regardless of what I did or said.

This rings very true with my husband and I. I often feel like if the house isn't clean when he gets home, or if all of the chores aren't done, then I'm not worthy of his love. I've let him down. I don't deserve his love. I've fallen short.

But, nonetheless, on those days that I have "fallen short", he continues to love me just the same, and that's hard for me to accept!

This week, I've decided to actually accept his love during the busy, messy days and be grateful for the love he continues to show me. I've decided to change from wanting to go hide or immediately clean the entire house to telling him, "I'm sorry the house is a mess. Thank you for loving me anyway."

(By the way, my husband is not controlling nor does he tell me that cleaning the house is all my job and that it better be done every day perfectly.  That is just something that I have made up and that I struggle with within myself. )

There are so many things in this world telling us what we do and don't deserve.

Accept the love that's given to you... especially God' love that has been freely poured out for you. All you have to do is accept it.

God has shown us such great love in so many ways, it can be hard to accept it... especially when you feel lost or shameful. Even in those times, God loves you, and you can accept it, you just have to actually take time and do it!

Forgiveness - 

This week, I also decided to accept forgiveness. I began to accept other people's forgiveness as well as forgiving my own self.

I like to hold myself to a very high bar, and I often fall short.

This week, I've forgiven myself for falling short. I've accepted where I am in life, and have forgiven the mistakes I've made getting here.

I've let loose the string holding onto me telling me I'm not good enough and that I've made too many mistakes to ever get anywhere.

I've accepted forgiveness from myself, and that has been absolutely freeing.

Myself - 

Have you ever heard that when you get married, you get fatter? It's true. And it's happened to me!

I'm one of those annoying people who doesn't have to work very hard to maintain a good weight... at least, I used to be.

My metabolism has caught up with me, and I've started gaining weight in all the wrong places.

For a while, I've been shying away from how I look. I've been hiding from myself when I'm naked near a mirror, and haven't wanted to see the truth in what I look like.

This week, while I've been accepting all kinds of things, I also decided to accept myself.

I've decided to accept my physical appearance, funky personality, singing voice, dance skills, weird interests, embarrassing truths, and it has been awesome.

I've accepted myself and who I am... who God made me to be!

I've accepted that there are going to be things about me that others don't like, and that's okay! Everyone on this earth does not have to like me! (And that's big for me to accept.)

I've accepted me, and me is happy!

. . . 

I hope this has encouraged you to accept more things in your life! 

I can tell you from experience, it's absolutely, incredibly freeing! 

TGBTG

Cheers!