God knows your potential better you do.  Be quiet and listen to Him.

I don’t think I am out of the ordinary when it comes to being hard on myself.  As ordinary people, I don’t know where and how we learn it, but somehow we confuse inadequacy for humility.  In so doing, we are content to make little huts of our lives when, I am convinced, the Savior is prepared to create of our lives a temple.  I believe it is difficult to love another person as the Savior would have you love them if you doubt your ability to love yourself.

I also think that when it comes to divine potential, it is not my responsibility to change anyone else.  Not long after I was married, I overheard my husband on the phone talking to a old friend.  Apparently the friend had asked him if I “fixed” him yet.  His reply warmed my heart: he said, “Silly girl seems to love me just the way I am.”  When you love someone, you need to be prepared to love him (or her) as he (or she) is.

Sometimes the best way to love someone as he is is to get out of his way and allow him to become everything he has within him to be.  Someone once asked President Gordon B. Hinckley (the tenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) how Mormon men treat their women.  He said something to the effect that if they are wise, they get out of the way and let the woman become all that she has the potential to become and then marvel at what she can accomplish!  I thought you had to be married to a prophet or an apostle to be loved and supported in that way, but because of my late husband, I know that regular people can experience that kind of transforming love.

Loving this way doesn't apply to marriage alone, but to all of our human relationships; family, friends, even strangers.  It is not my job to fix other people.  In fact, I am powerless to do so.  It hurts my heart when someone I love tries to "fix" me in the name of love.  It is meant well, but it often impedes my progress rather than encourages it.  We all need models more than we need critics.

So early tomorrow, while the dew is still on the leaf, I am going to find a quiet spot to be still and listen to Him whose opinion of me is the only one that really matters. "Be still, and know that I am God." Psalms 46:10.