It begins the day you realize that approval is a wind that shifts too easily, warm one moment, cold the next. You choose it and still it slips through your hands like smoke.
From the time we are young, we learn to perform, to smile when we ache, to blend in when we long to stand out. In today's world, our children, along with many adults, measure themselves by likes on social media, but the soul was never meant to be sized by someone else's tape. And the loudest voices around you are rarely the truest ones. But what matters most is the quiet voice inside you, the one that knows your story, your pain, your purpose. You don't stop caring what others think overnight, but you start by remembering that dignity isn't something others give you, is something God already did. And when you know who you are and whose you are, the world's opinions begin to lose their power because life matters and your worth was never up for a vote. You were always enough.
This is Dr. Scott Morris for Church Health.