“Failure!  You failed!  Why do you even try?  Who do you think you are?  You are a failure!  Give up and go home!”  Does this sound familiar?  How many of you have a little voice in your head saying these types of things to you?

I admit.  I am not perfect.  (Hold the laughter please.)  At times, I hear a little voice in my head telling me things like the voice above.  What adds insult to injury is when others say these things to you too, which has also happened to me.   We are most critical of ourselves, so it is even more hurtful when the little voice in our heads is confirmed by others. Whether it is the little voice or real voices, it hurts.  For me, it brings me down.  It lessens my love for myself. I feel like a failure. Many of you probably feel the same way.

Yes, we will do things that are not good.  We will do things in which the end result is not what we expected.  We may even cause what we perceive as a “mess.”

The good thing is, we don’t need to listen to this voice or the voices in the world.  Yes, we will make mistakes and we need to learn from them.  We will do things that are not good, that don’t end in the results we expected, and/or cause what we perceive as a “mess.”  However, these things do not define who we are.  Just because the action or activity did not turn out good doesn’t mean we are not good.  We ARE loved by God.  That is the only thing that really matters.  And within this love is a great wealth of forgiveness.

“Like the prodigal (son) we need to be able to kneel, broken, before the Father, and allow his love and forgiveness to seep into us.  In a sense that is the sacrament of Reconciliation.  It is the empowering, accepting embrace of God.  It is in this embrace that God confesses.  The amazing thing about God’s confession is that it reveals that God believes in us far more than we will ever believe in God.  God believes in us far more than we will ever believe in ourselves.”  – Freedom and Forgiveness: A Fresh Look at the Sacrament of Reconciliation by Father Paul Farren.

Therefore, when you have done something that you are not happy about, when you are feeling down about yourself, please remember . . . Do not listen to the little voice in your head or to others.  LISTEN TO THE ONLY VOICE THAT MATTERS . . . GOD!  HE BELIEVES IN YOU!