Day Thirteen

LIKE WHAT YOU LIKE

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

—2 TIMOTHY 1:7 NIV

Growing up, I wish I knew that I could like anything I wanted to like.

I loved playing in the middle school band. I’ve always been a huge music fan. In fact, I taught myself to play the piano by using a tiny three-octave electric keyboard and a hymnal that my choir director gave us at the end of third grade.

So when I entered middle school, I immediately joined the band. It was a tough choice between band and orchestra because I couldn’t decide between the French horn and the cello. While my friend and neighbor Grace joined the orchestra, I felt the pull to the French horn. And boy, did I love that thing.

When it was time to go to high school, though, I quit because I thought it was uncool to be in the band. My self-esteem was so low that I gave up something I really enjoyed because I was working so hard to be perceived as cool.

If I had been brave enough to pursue what I liked back then, I would have kept playing the French horn and probably would have really enjoyed it. Maybe I’d be performing in the Nashville Symphony now instead of wondering if I even remember how to play the instrument. But I thought it was more important to do the “cool thing” than to do the thing I loved. I needed everyone else’s approval since I didn’t have my own.

I thought it was more important to do the “cool thing” than to do the thing I loved. I needed everyone else’s approval since I didn’t have my own.

I wish that was just a problem I had when I was a kid, but it’s not. At times I still have to be confident in the person I want to be and what I want to do, even if it isn’t cool or popular.

You know what’s brave? Giving yourself permission to do the thing you want to do, to like whatever you want to like.

That’s my hope for you. That as you grow to love yourself more and more, you will feel brave enough to love the things you love instead of altering them because you think that’s what it will take to be accepted.

You are accepted by God. And hopefully you accept you too.

BE BRAVE: I love making lists. So today make a list of five things that you really like: hobbies, musicians, food, places, TV shows. Give yourself permission to really like what you like.