{"id":19654,"date":"2024-02-29T04:59:11","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T10:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=19654"},"modified":"2024-02-29T04:59:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T10:59:14","slug":"affirming-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=19654","title":{"rendered":"Affirming ME!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This &#8220;leap year&#8221; day gives me the opportunity to close out this LOVE month with a conscious effort of loving and affirming ME! What??? Donna! That sure sounds braggadocious! Oh, but not so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hear me out! In the dictionary, \u201cSelf-Affirmation\u201d is the recognition of the existence and value of one&#8217;s individual self. Yes, we live in a self-indulgent, it\u2019s all about ME, self-gratification world today. Just check out all the selfies of ourselves, our family, our <a><\/a>friends on Facebook. I\u2019m guilty as charged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I&#8217;ve tried to do a selfie of my husband and me, thankfully, somone will come along and offer to take the photo for us. What about self-affirmation &#8212; that awareness of how valuable we are to God AND to ourselves? I think it\u2019s okay because I learned long ago that my closest friend who is with me 24\/7 is ME. I better like ME, because everywhere I go, I am there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Question is \u201cDo we love ourselves?\u201d I mean truly, honestly love ourselves? As a teenager, I remember saying &#8220;She sure loves herself&#8221; and that was meant as a criticism. SHE was one who pranced herself around in a boastful way, who made others feel so much less than her. There&#8217;s a difference in THAT girl or guy, and the one that Jesus talked about when He said, &#8220;Love your neighbor, as you love YOURSELF.&#8221; Mark 12:31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hear life coaches encourage self-affirmation: &#8220;Look in the mirror and say to yourself&#8230;.&#8217;I love you&#8217;!\u201d I agree with that philosophy. How can we truly love others if we don&#8217;t love ourselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not that easy to love ourselves, especially, as Christians, when we&#8217;re truly seeking to be humble. The truth is, only those who feel good about who they are, can really express humility. It takes someone who loves him\/herself to acknowledge that they don\u2019t have all the answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can love ourselves, and come across as sincere, authentic, real, AND humble. Rick Warren says: &#8220;Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it\u2019s thinking of yourself less.\u201d It doesn&#8217;t mean we don\u2019t care for ourselves, but it does mean we think of others AS MUCH as we think of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe you and I can start a love fest with ourselves by putting up some post it notes on our mirror that helps us out with the compliments: \u201cI love YOU&#8221;&#8230;&#8230;.&#8221;I trust you&#8221;&#8230;&#8230;&#8221;I am so proud of you&#8221;&#8230;&#8230;&#8221;I appreciate you&#8221;&#8230;..&#8221;You are strong&#8221;&#8230;&#8230;&#8221;God loves you&#8221;&#8230;..&#8221;You can do all things through Christ Who strengthens you.&#8221; \u2026.&#8221;You are a conqueror!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This graphic looks like it is for students. I like that. Helping young people be aware of how amazing they are and what they can do! I think it&#8217;s exactly what we all need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s go ahead and love ourselves. We&#8217;ve been given permission from our Father to rise and shine with the love for ourselves so we can amp up the love for our neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This &#8220;leap year&#8221; day gives me the opportunity to close out this LOVE month with a conscious effort of loving and affirming ME! What??? Donna! That sure sounds braggadocious! Oh, but not so! Hear me out! In the dictionary, \u201cSelf-Affirmation\u201d is the recognition of the existence and value of one&#8217;s individual self. Yes, we live&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29151,1210,1769,29153,1392,5635,530,29154,3614,40,15070,8781,218,3712,29150,1667,29152],"class_list":["post-19654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-affirming-me","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-do-we-love-ourselves","tag-facebook","tag-humble","tag-humility","tag-humility-love-fest","tag-i-love-you","tag-inspiration","tag-like-me","tag-look-in-the-mirror","tag-love-your-neighbor","tag-rick-warren","tag-self-gratification-2","tag-selfie","tag-value-oneself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19666,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19654\/revisions\/19666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}