Confident Moms, Confident Daughters By Maria FurloughExemplo

Day Two:  Common Ground

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:6-7, Romans 8:10

As moms, we are the confidence standards in our homes. We set the tone and the example of what confidence looks like. Throughout each day, we will look honestly and boldly at our words, choices, and actions. We will pause before the choices we make when it comes to talking about our bodies and our looks, and we will check our motives. Then we will show our daughters and the younger women in our lives what Christ is revealing to us and tell them all we learn. 

When will our confidence to do this come? It starts today by simply saying I can do this. We need to take up this confidence like it is ours to keep, holding it white knuckled in our hands through Christ in us. We need to accept the righteousness that Christ imparted to us when we became His daughters because this lays the foundation of godly self-acceptance: “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). 

From where does all of our insecurity come? The answer I discovered for myself was hard to admit but simple to understand: I was obsessed with myself. I thought about myself way too much. Doesn’t it make sense? Our minds protest that surely we are doing nothing wrong. We are simply trying to improve ourselves, become better. So we size ourselves up on a minute-to-minute basis and live in denial of the fact that doing so is wrong. The truth is I never had the strength to be any different because I didn’t have the motivation to change.

Then I met Jesus. He held up a mirror to my life and revealed something that stopped me dead in my tracks. His presence and His words seared deep into my soul: Maria, you want to become confident? You want to live free from obsessing over your body? Take your eyes off of you and fix them on Me instead.

Take a few moments and ask God to reveal what your motive for change is? Don’t rush this reflection: why do I want to stop this obsessive preoccupation with myself? Do you believe that God wants to replace your thoughts of self with His thoughts of you?