Jesus Christ suffered for me so that I don’t have to suffer. He helps me to become better, patient with my mistakes as he offers healing, hope, and repentance. He treats me with overwhelming lovingkindness.

But how do I treat myself?

Sometimes I am downright mean to myself. It’s like I find myself wallowing in the mud, so I simultaneously yell at myself for being there while pushing my face back into the filth as punishment.

I sabotage my own change, not through weakness, but through cruelty as I tell myself that I don’t deserve better and that I’ll never be good enough.

I criticize constantly, picking at flaws and putting a magnifying glass up to things that don’t matter. There are physical characteristics that no one ever notices or cares about, and I point them out to myself, as if I could never be beautiful. I ruin my own time management in the simultaneous pursuit of too much that doesn’t matter and not enough that does, and then I become overwhelmed with shame that I can never get it right.

I treat myself in a way that I would never treat anyone else. I want to become better, but I am so nasty to myself that I get in the way of my own progress.

I want to be kinder to myself than anyone else in the world. I wan to become patient and loving, allowing myself to change without ruining it with my self-punishment.

I can forgive myself. I can allow myself to do better. I can release the shame. I can patiently go forward, step by step.

And as I love myself more, I become more beautiful as I come a little closer to my Savior.