The measures we use..

I was at a dinner party last night with 5 other amazing women, these are women who have changed my life. They fearlessly speak into my world, they draw out my hopes and dreams and they lift me up and into my God given destiny. In our conversations they both allow me to be me while encouraging me to be the best version of me. They tell me when I'm wrong, they show me what I need to sow into and what I need to let slip away and they do it in the most loving, kind and gentle way. I am better for knowing them.

When I look at them I see beautiful, talented, strong, feminine women who are each on a journey to discover who they are in life (just quietly I am incredibly blessed to walk the journey beside them). They each have so many amazing qualities that I love and admire and are so full of wisdom! I love them deeply!

What struck me last night though was the extreme difference in the way we love each other to the way we love ourselves, the way we measure success in others compared to the way we measure success in ourselves. We are so kind and generous with each other.. when we think of the important qualities that we look for in our friends, the things we love about them, even the way we encourage them, we are so loving.

I look at my girlfriends (all of my girlfriends) and I see amazing women who navigate life with courage and grace. I see women who even when they have made mistakes or fallen, they get up and live and love. I see success in the ways they love each other, in the people they are trying to be, in the differences they are making in their world whether it be raising amazing daughters or giving a hug to someone in need. I see the beauty in their journey. When I see the mistakes they have made in their lives, I don't see the mistake! I see how they have allowed their mistakes to grow and shape their life, how they will willingly go back there to that place where they were fragile and share with me how they navigated the challenge. How even when it is painful they are willing to give. I see them as more precious than any jewel in this world. If I am honest when I look at my friends and evaluate their journey the measuring tool I use is love, compassion, understanding and awe.

I think most of my girlfriends are like that when they look at the people in their world.  It's funny to me that when we look at each other we see the success not the failure, the voice inside us says so worthy not worthless, we feel love not hate yet when we look at ourselves we use a different measure. We see our failures, our shortcomings, the worthlessness, we look at our situations and say if only _____ then I would be worth enough to love. The measuring tool we use for ourselves is hate and the scale of evil emotions that hate breeds. Even the way we judge success in ourselves is different, often the things we think we need in order to be worthy aren't something we even take notice of in our friends..

I pray that today just for the day we can take off the hate we have for ourselves and treat ourselves like we do our best friends. I pray that today we be be gentle with ourselves that we can try to be loving, compassionate, understanding and in awe of where we have been. I pray that we can try on what it looks like to love ourselves like we love each other x