How God Sees Me

I was recently blessed to attend my other Mom's 70th birthday party with a bunch of family in St. George, Utah.  Among many other blessings came the inspiration from one of them for a solid morning routine. I have ADHD when it comes to schedules, like a child in a candy store where everything is free: so many amazing things to do and so little time!  So I latched onto hers:
Yoga
Core
Meditation
Scripture reading (before or after meditation)
Duolingo

Well, today I was in the meditation stage and I decided to focus on seeing my own self worth. You see, I have a deep-seated fear that I just annoy people. I am hyper, excited, love to talk/philosophize, do things, get distracted, don't follow through....yah.  The list goes on.  So I hate wasting people's time, bothering them, disappointing them, hurting them...one aspect why the death of my son was especially traumatic.  There I was, having hurt so many people, and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

Anyway, I felt it particularly with my older kids. I disappoint my kids regularly with wanting to do things with them and not following through or having things fall through and seeing that sad disappointed look on their faces.   And my older kids seem particularly annoyed with so much of what I do.  I feel like I am past manipulation because that is just nasty. I feel like the only thing I even sometimes correct them on is how they treat their little siblings and keeping their areas clean.  Discussions invite a rolling of the eyes or deliberate walking away (I like to talk and most of them don't)...anyway...back to the meditation...

So I was meditating about my self-worth because I feel like if I can see myself like God sees me, then it won't matter how my kids or others think of me and I won't engage in any negative, self-perpetuating co-dependency practices and just leave others free to feel about me as they wish, leave me free to serve and love them the best I can and not worry about if I mess up, and be at peace with myself and not berate myself for hurting the happiness of others.

As I meditated, it was really taking some effort. I was having a hard time even knowing where to start. It felt like God was speaking to me through a glass darkly, as the scriptures say: trying from all sorts of angles to reach me and I just couldn't understand Him.

And then it came: the images of some of my children came.  He loves my Piper-like love of serving and learning; He loves my deep Hava desire to create and feel and love; He loves my sparkly Maia-ness; He loves my quirky Xai-ness; He loves my slow, deep, rich Eli-ness; He loves my spunky, squishy Liesl-ness...all completely unbased upon what I accomplish, do or become.  It is just because of me.

I felt like the windows of heaven opened up as I saw that Heavenly Father sees me like I see my children, who are just yummy for who they are.  Can He really see me the same way?  I pray that I may open my eyes to see it so I don't seek it from the imperfect lens reflected back from those around me.