So I have this friend...

She's one of my best friends. Her name is Morgan. And she's just recently started her own blog. You should definitely check it out because she's done a really nice job with it so far. Plus, she takes some really lovely pictures. Oh yeah, and she made this layout for me, which I absolutely adore! See, she really is amazing.

So she wrote this post earlier about this quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson~

Morgan's post is pretty difficult to follow-up, because it was so well-written and she made so many good points. But I'm supposed to write about what the quote means to me, so here goes!

It seems to me, that what Marianne was trying to get across is that people so often get held back by fear. And yet, what we think we're afraid of isn't even what we are truly afraid of. There are so many people out there, mostly women, who hold their true self back because of fear.

I'm not a mother yet, but I know that when I do have a daughter one day. I'm going to want her to have confidence in herself. I wish for her that she will know how beautiful she is, inside and out. So why is it that I'm afraid of thinking the same thing about myself? I'm sure my mother has prayed for the same things I pray for my daughter.

To me, the above quote means that I need to let go of my fear-- the fear that someone might find out how much I love myself the way I am, and roll their eyes at me. Instead, I should embrace the fact that I love myself. If I think I look beautiful in the morning when I wake up, it's all because God made me perfectly in his image. If I'm proud of something that I learn to create, I'm not boasting my own talents, I'm sharing with the world that I'm so grateful for the gifts God has given me. If I stand on the rooftops, shouting how much I love Wayne, it's by God's grace that I was able to find such a perfect man.

So this is what Marianne's quote means to me, that we shouldn't be afraid to display all the wonderful ways God has blessed us, but we should never forget that it truly is God who has made us what we are, and we are nothing without Him.