Being Friends With Yourself

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

“I’m so clumsy!” Colette said as she wiped ice cream that had dripped down the front of her shirt.

Grandma Dana put an arm around Colette’s shoulders. “As a girl, I could be very mean to myself,” she told Colette. “I would often criticize why I had said a certain thing or why I didn’t look a certain way.”

Colette took a lick of her ice cream. “I guess I do that too,” she whispered.

Her grandma nodded. “As I’ve gotten older, I realized it wasn’t helping me feel good about myself and it didn’t help me achieve what I wanted to do. If anything, it held me back in fear.”

“So what did you do?” Colette asked.

“I started really reading the Bible,” Grandma Dana said with a smile. “I realized what I was telling myself wasn’t what God would say to me. They weren’t truths from his Word—they were lies. They were also things I would never say to a good friend. I would never want to hurt someone else with the kinds of things I was telling myself.”

Colette nodded. “Can you show me the Scriptures you read?”

“Of course!” her grandma replied. “I’ll make you a list when we get home.”

God does not hide his feelings about us. The Bible says that we are loved, chosen, forgiven, and created with purpose. When we begin to ask him to help us, listen to his voice (instead of our own), and hear what he has to say about us, our thoughts about ourselves can change. We’ll become more secure in who we are, because we can be secure in what God thinks about us. We are God’s beloved children! Once we know how much God loves and is for us, we can choose to believe his truth and be a good friend by speaking kind words over ourselves—and over our friends.

Things to Think About

• Have you ever put yourself down? What kinds of things have you said?
• Do you know what God thinks about you?
• Make a list of the true things God says about you.

DAILY ACT OF FRIENDSHIP

When you start to put yourself down, replace that thought with a truth from God’s Word.