Choose Health

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I find that people are so much more sensitive these days than they used to be. If there’s a way to be offended by something, people will find it.

There was a time when I was extremely sensitive and anything anybody said to me would hurt my feelings. I thought that everybody else was better than me and because my self-esteem was so low, I walked around wounded all the time. It seemed to me that I was surrounded by happy and confident people; and there I was, feeling hopeless and helpless living a life with no meaning or purpose.

When you’re not healthy and feeling whole, it’s easy to be offended everywhere you turn. It’s not that people are out to get you; it’s that you don’t know how to stand up for yourself. If you don’t have your own back, how can you believe that anybody else will?

It’s not as if one day all of a sudden I found this well of confidence and dove in; it’s more that I got tired of walking around being hurt all the time. I was hurting myself so nobody else had to do it. I saw no value in my life and so I demeaned myself before anybody else had a chance to.

When you’re healthy, unimportant things just don’t phase you. When you’re not healthy, everything is like sandpaper scraping against your emotions rubbing you raw. I had to make up my mind to choose myself and to chase after wholeness because nobody was going to hand it to me.

When I did, I discovered that people weren’t being mean to me, I was. (Nobody could be meaner to me than I had been.) I enjoyed the fact that the people I spent time with were confident because their self-esteem boosted mine. It had to start with me making a decision to stop being so fragile and to toughen up. I had to value my own opinion over that of others. All of the slights that I had imagined were only in my head.

Now when I encounter someone who is very sensitive and fragile, I remember when I was in their shoes and I find a way to build them up. I want them to know that there’s nothing wrong with being soft hearted, but they have to find their own gifts and strengths and not measure them against someone else’s.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made but we’re all different. The world would be very dull if we were just the same. God enjoys variety; it adds flavor to the world that we live in. The same way some people enjoy lots of garlic or pepper in their food, other people don’t; they prefer more salt and oregano. Whatever sensitivities you may have, God wired you just that way. He can use you to do things that He can’t trust anybody else to do. You have to learn to trust yourself and just go with it.

Whether you’re feeling salty or super spicy today, just be yourself and season the place that you’re in.