You are a Beautiful Thing

Surrounding yourself with people who value you is important.
Surrounding yourself with people who are affirming is important.
Don’t ever limit yourself to being around people who are only affirming, 
or only make you feel comfortable
or only tell you want you want to hear.
That’s dangerous.
But it’s just as dangerous, I think, to only be around people who leave you feeling less.

If you are consistently walking away from certain social environments and only feeling unvalued, degraded, and slimed, that means you should be wary of being in that social environment excessively. 
God created you to be you. And it pleases Him when you are you.
So when a certain environment is telling you that who you are isn’t enough,
isn’t worth valuing, or
isn’t something beautiful
there are two things you need to do:

1: shake it off, and
2: be clothed again in truth.

We are obviously sinners. We are obviously mistake-makers.
But there’s something you bring to the world that no one else can.
No one exactly has your mix of a personality.
No one else has your memories
your feelings
your experiences
your creativity.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
You are a beautiful thing.

This should not instill in you a sense of self-entitlement. We are called to love others selflessly, honor them above ourselves, and should do our best to serve them in all circumstances, with utmost humility. And with that comes some abuse. We will always be under-appreciated and taken advantage of. After all, Jesus was. Why should we expect something different?

Do not take yourself out or above a place of service. But do not only reside in a place of service. Jesus spent time alone before His Father. I think this was key for Him to have unwavering stamina when it came down to serving others, and always honoring them with how He treated them and spoke to them.

Do not expect yourself to be able to love people well, all the time, unless there is some place you are getting filled back up again. And it is vital that your source of truth is the right source of truth.

Run to the Father, and don’t let demeaning voices into your core group of friends. You cannot love others perfectly if you are not allowing yourself to be loved perfectly.