7/17 Today's Gift

[Cynay]

You are reading from the book Today's Gift

When you feel rejected, start accepting yourself, and then go out and accept someone.
--Sondra Ray

There was once a mother who felt rejected when her children grew up and needed to separate from her. She felt hurt when they pushed her away and no longer wanted all the love and caring that she wanted to give them. She thought, What's wrong with me?

Encouraged by her friends, she began to ask herself another question: What's right with me? The more answers she found to that question, the better she liked herself. The better she liked herself, the more she was able to see her children's need to separate from her as their own natural and healthy urge for independence, and not the result of her shortcomings.

Our good points may seem undesirable to others, but that's not our fault. Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be inappropriate, but that doesn't make it bad.

What's right with me today?

From Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.