Day 6: Owning my truth

     All my life I've been told that I remember things wrong, that's not how it happened, and my experience isn't valid. I've been told that I exaggerate, and that I can't possibly be feeling what I say I am. I'm too young, too healthy to feel the way I say I do. And for a long time I believed it.

     It's only been in the last couple of years that I've been able to begin to call abuse, abuse. I've been able to validate my body and believe what I feel. For so long, I buried things because they couldn't be true. I stopped listening to my body and came to a point where I couldn't even hear it anymore. It had to scream in order for me to listen, and scream it did. 

     I'm beginning to learn to listen to the clues my body gives me and respond before it's too late. I'm not great at it yet, but I'm getting better. I used to be able to mark my calendar for when I would be sick after times of overdo. I thought that was good and normal, a sign that I was productive and useful. Now I'm learning that it was poor stewardship of my body and life. I try to watch for hints that my spoons are running low and slow down while I still have some left.

     There's still a part of me that says if I CAN do something I SHOULD do it. But then my dear friend's voice echos in my mind, "Stop shoulding all over yourself!" She's right. Should never gets me anywhere good.

Here's the thing: I am not my productivity. My value does not lie in how much I accomplish or how others see me. I am so valuable that the God of Heaven sent His Son to die so that I could be with him for eternity. If that's not value, I don't know what is.