(I posted this on Facebook and figured I should post it here as well since I haven't posted anything in a very very very long while)
"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, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children we do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
--Marianne Williamson
I wanted to share this quote with you all as soon as I found it. It really struck a chord with me.
We need to stop feeling like we need to pretend to be less than we are and less than we can become just so that we can fit in with the people around us. We're so special and God sees this! He sees our potential to be ridiculously amazing at different things; He made us that way so that we can serve Him to the fullest extent possible. What use is it if we try to hide these talents and stuff just so that we don't make other people around us feel insecure about themselves? By stretching ourselves to our fullest instead of shrinking ourselves to fit into the mold of society, we give others the freedom to do the same. Imagine if everyone put aside their fear to use their God-given gifts to their fullest extent! How cool would that be!
I admit that I sometimes shrink myself to fit into the "normal" mold that society pretty much created. But I don't want to do that anymore. I'm going to try even harder not to dumb my abilities down in order to make people feel better about themselves. Honestly, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." So if the people I talk to feel insecure because I'm using my God-given talents to the fullest, then they need to look seriously at themselves and ask themselves why they feel so inferior. Nobody is better than anyone else, but everyone has different abilities. Those people need to find their abilities and explore them and use them to the fullest extent possible. And if certain people don't accept me because I am smart or because I am a figure skater or because I love to write or because I enjoy music or because I love to dance with abandon or because I like to serve in tech booths or because I love God with all my heart...if certain people can't accept me for what God has given me, then how can I be a true friend to those people? True friends accept each other for the way they are.
I pray that God may help us open our eyes to the fact that He made us a certain way for a reason. He gave us certain abilities so that we can use them to serve Him better. I pray that we all, myself included, rid ourselves of the idea that we need to act a certain way in order to fit into what everyone tells us to fit in to. Only God can tell us where we belong. I'm not saying that this is an easy thing to do, because it's not. Sometimes we feel like we're penned into a year that's too small and we want to break free, break out of that fenced yard in order to fully use ourselves to the highest extent possible. Sometimes those walls seem to high to climb over and they seem too sturdy to break down. But if we're patient and we stretch as far as we can go, eventually those walls will break down and we'll find a way to do what it is we were meant to do.
End of rant ;) Feel free to share this with anyone else if I forgot to tag someone you think sould read it. Let me know what you think about the quote! Love you all. <3
(Well, that's it. Whoever is reading this right now, if you have something to say about it, then by all means say it!)
