Someone recently said to me that we are own worst critics. Wow, isn't that the truth? I started to think about this a lot and as much as I want to be thinner and fit I still need to learn to love myself as I am. I need to learn to love myself as my Heavenly Father loves me. He has loved me when I was my heaviest and when I was at my lightest. So how do we ensure that we can be happy no matter how we are?
Our health is so important to so many aspects of our life. It affects our personal well-being, our personal interactions, our approach to how we do our work, but most importantly it affects how we serve our Heavenly Father. If we are unable to care for ourselves it is far more difficult to serve others. In Doctrine and Covenants 88:124 it states, Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated." We are commanded to not be idle that we must ensure we are taking care of our body, our temple. The adversary knows he will not receive a body and in turn wants us to misuse ours. He convinces us to not love ourselves and to not appreciate this gift. We must learn how to love ourselves and be willing to take care of it.
I didn't take care of myself for a long period of time and it made me so unhappy. No matter how many times my husband told me I was beautiful I couldn't believe it. I am working hard to take care of myself and although I now think I am beautiful no matter what I have learned that I still need to work daily to care for myself. By doing this I can in turn serve others better as well as serve my Heavenly Father better. Brigham Young said it best when he said, "If you have a bad thought about yourself, tell it to go to hell because that is exactly where it came from."
