Divine Value

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. Its not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

--Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Speech, 1994

This is my all time favorite quote! It goes quite nicely with the topic for

Month 1: Week 2

When Jesus Christ went into the wilderness to fast it was right after He was baptized and had received a confirmation of the Spirit (in the form of a dove) that He was in fact, THE Son of God. He knew that He was the Messiah!

After fasting FORTY days He is tempted by Satan. James E Talmage tells us in his book Jesus the Christ that Satan's temptation was not in the act of making stone into bread, which He could have easily done, but in the IF. "...If thou be the Son of God.." Satan's temptation from beginning to end is a taunt to try to make Jesus believe that He was not Divinity.

Jesus knew and did not doubt the Spiritual confirmation which He had received. He knew that He had the power of God and didn't need to prove that by shrinking to ridiculous "signs."

Satan doesn't want us to remember that we are children of God and as such, have the opportunity to be crowned with His glory in the hereafter. That is why Satan is always trying to convince us that we are small, insignificant, and hopeless. We have a great work to do in this life and in the one to come. The only way to stop us is to convince us that we are not worthy.

The point of life is not to be perfect, the point of life is to make mistakes.

As we learn to realize that we are deserving of Christ's atonement, we learn to see ourselves as He sees us, at our full Spiritual potential.

This week, I am not going to let my insecurities get the better of me. I'm not going to worry about what other people are thinking about me. I am going to be ME to the fullest. I am going to give all that i have to give to the world. I hope that you will be able to do the same!

So it seems that ever since I have proclaimed myself strong and working toward a better self-esteem, the forces of hell have tried even harder to stop me. This week I have to admit that I have still struggled with my little dips of feeling bad about myself.

I have been trying to combat it and remind myself what I learned and what that means to me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Most effective for me is to coach myself. My favorite show is the Biggest Loser so I have taken my coaching from there.

I ask myself, "Why are you here?" Answer: "To gain eternal life."
"What can I do right now, today, this very moment to obtain that?" Answers vary, but most of the time they are things like turn off the TV and spend time with your kids, or the house being spotless is not as important as reading the scriptures, or don't yell just use a calm and effective way to teach your kids right from wrong.

The most important positive change that has occurred is that I now feel like I deserve to be happy. It might sound ridiculous, but in the past I have lived without things because I felt that I didn't deserve them, but now this light has gone on and it is like, I am a Priestess of course I deserve to have God love me.

With every goal that we have, lets use weight loss for example. We set the goal and we go along doing well for a day or two and then we are faced with a temptation (which craftily enough lands exactly at the same time that we are feeling bad about ourselves because of something else that has happened in our lives) so we fall into temptation. We eat like a cookie. Then we feel so bad about ourselves for choosing wrong and we tell ourselves that we have messed up and that all our previous work is now ruined! Some days, for me, I have a defeat us attitude and sit down give up on life for that day and eat another 10.

With every decision that we make there is a right and a wrong. "Should I read the scriptures this morning or watch TV? The battle over what you should do and what you want to do will be in your face every day as a mother. We don't have a boss telling us what we have to do and when, in order to make the right choices for our children. We have to pull that out of deep down inside of us. The will power to be strong and to do right for our children, but also for us.

Heavenly Father loves us even if we eat a whole box of cookies in a sitting, if we watch a whole season of Gilmore Girls in one day, and if we lose our temper. The truth is that we are not perfect. We are His children, we are all as much children as the kids that we are trying to raise. That is why we must give up the control and trust in God. Remember, we are all on a journey toward heaven. God loves each and every one of us for our potential. He sees us as queens in His kingdom. He wants us back just as much and more than we do.

That is why if we make mistakes we should look to Him and know that He loves us anyways. We should not give up hope when we make a mistake, we should rejoice because that is a moment when we can put our trust in God, turn to Jesus Christ, and obtain just a little more faith.

I love my Savior because He is always with me. I just have to open my spiritual eyes and see Him. My perspective needs to change for the better about mistakes. We weren't given life to be perfect, we were given life to learn through making mistakes.

Introduction

My name is Rivkah and I am the mother of three beautiful girls. All my life all I wanted to be was a mother. While growing up I prepared myself to sacrifice everything so that I could be a stay-at-home mom.



I have had many people tell me that being a mother means that I will most likely lose my identity. I don't believe that this is true, IF I can keep my feelings of self worth focused on the things that really matter. I will rely on my faith to help me keep my identity and nothing else.



I want to have a healthy self-esteem and think that there is room for improvement. I'm going to take a journey to heal myself emotionally. My objective is to gain a better self-esteem. I invite all of you, my readers, to come along with me. Share in my self discoveries and find some of your own, because I believe that every mother, career or homemaker, has moments of self doubt.



I plan on this process being four months long, I will post every single week on Sunday, and sometimes in between if I have some very important self discoveries to share. There are also a few books that I plan on reading and I will let you know what they are as I go so that you can read them too. If you want to.



So here goes, to opening myself up and showing all of my vulnerabilities!





Week 1: Month 1



My first thought of self-esteem is that, it is the way that we define ourselves. We define ourselves as who we believe that we are to different people. I say believe, because I have found that many times the way that I think other people view me is in reality all wrong, however, the way that they actually view me is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because perception is our only reality when dealing with self-esteem.



The most important relationship that we should allow to define our identity is our relationship with Heavenly Father. So I went to the scriptures. I asked myself, "Who am I in relationship to God?" I turned to Moses 1. This is where Moses is speaking to God. I think that the most important thing that Moses learns is that he is a child of God.

It is interesting that we can be taught this our whole lives, yet, we can still not fully understand it. When I read this I learned that because I am a child of God, I have an eternal purpose. I am not just a person, to Him, I am a Queen. To Him, I am a Priestess. When I try to see myself as my Father sees me, I see glory.

This causes me to look forward beyond the limits of this mortality into eternity. I think, "What are my goals for eternity?"

When Moses asked why God had created the world and all the people in it, God said, "For behold this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the imortality and eternal life of man." I feel that, as a mother, I am helping Him to do this. I give them life so that Christ can give them imortality. Then I spend my daily efforts trying to teach them principles that would give them eternal life.

This is important! I think that because it is such a long term goal which seems so far into the future, we begin to lose focus and think too much about the immeadiate goals which we are making. Perhaps a goal to lose weight or for me the goal to sale my house. When we put too much stock into our immeadiate goals so that we lose sight of our eternal goal, our self esteem suffers.

Satan knows exactly how to tempt me into feeling bad about myself. He whispers to me, "Don't forget you want to be better at this, and you promised to try harder to do that, and you are failing to remember them, and that other mother is better than you at that. You are failing, falling short, not good enough." And as soon as he does I start running around trying to do and be everything in this world, while forgetting what my purpose is out of this world.

Knowledge is power, and I feel the power of the Holy Ghost strengthening me when I ponder on the FACT that I am not just a child of God, but a part of His divine plan. He loves me and He is relying on me to be a Queen and a Priestess. This truth is the same for you. He loves us with an infinite love. No matter what we have done, we are still entitled to become a goddess in the hereafter through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

This week, strive to keep that eternal perspective. Think about who you really are in relationahip to our Heavenly Father. There is no power that can bring you down if you remain focused on the truth. Treasure that truth!

When Moses was confronted by Satan after speaking with God face to face, he said things like, "Where is thy glory that I should worship you?" "behold, I am a son of God." and "I can judge between thee and God." Then in the name of the Only Begotten, he commands satan to depart.

So during this week, if you find yourself bogged down with feelings of worthlessness, remember who you really are and that the darkness comes from satan. You have the ability, as a priestess to command him to leave, in the name of our Savior. Then pray and ponder the reality of who you really are. At least that is what I intend to do this week!

Wishing you all the very best thoughts and feelings!