After I read a comment from a friend of mine on Facebook, tears streamed down my face while I popped M&M’s in my mouth.

Courtesy of Creative Commons

Something about peanut M&M’s soothes me.

I sit here, typing and thinking, why am I crying? My friends are saying wonderful things and I’m crying when I should be happy.

It’s just like when my husband says I’m beautiful, and I respond, you just love me. Or like in this case, when my friends tell me they believe in me and I cry.

What is it with me?

It seems I’m not used to being loved.

There is the deep seated sense of unworthiness plaguing me.

My husband tells me he loves me, my friends compliment me, and sadly, it doesn’t compute.

*****

This weekend I was really down. I started telling my husband how I must be a real disappointment to God.

I know what you are going to say. I’m being too hard on myself, right?

And you would be right to say that.

However, this is what I believe. It’s not some ploy to fish for compliments or anything.

It’s the fractured self I live with every day.

Broken and battered soul who hasn’t fully healed from all the pain and hurt life has dished.

If you met me in person, you wouldn’t see this side unless you were looking closely. I have learned to survive and put up a good front.

But, the mask I wear is slowly crumbling.  

No, I do not see myself the way God sees me. I see through a tainted glass. My perception is warped based on years of repetitive traumatic experiences which I don’t care to get into at the moment.

I see the damage it has done and no, I don’t want to remain this way. I continue to pray for healing in the broken and painful places.

The places where others looking on the outside may judge me for.

It’s so easy to judge someone without knowing their story. We all do it, but it’s wrong, because we really don’t know why a person is the way they are or acts the way they do. We just label.

Meanwhile, I find, the people who judge severest, are the ones who are most damaged themselves. We reflect on to others what we ourselves are; like a mirror.

I want to see myself through God’s reflection and not my own or anyone elses for that matter.

I want to be able to receive and accept love from others without feeling the shame and unworthiness of it.

I don’t want to live my life always fearful, anxious, suspicious or guarded.

Yes, I want to use wisdom and discernment in setting firm boundaries where I must with others; whether it be family, friend or foe.

However, I don’t want to blanket everyone who has genuine intentions by putting them in the same category of those who have hurt me either.

I pray for myself and for all those struggling like me. May the Lord continue to touch and heal the broken places in our lives and make us whole.

Do you struggle with allowing yourself to be loved? How do you think God sees you? How do you see yourself and others?