It has been amazing to me to finally ask a couple of people when they found out they were love, only to hear they never really doubted it. It was a foundation they hadn’t questioned or needed to think about. It was simply a truth for them.

It was two years ago this summer that I went to my prayer warrior. It was in the depth of covid so we sat out on her deck keeping a distance between us. I had finished the book she had me read–I Give You Authority. In it were the 3-R’s: Recognize, Reject and Replace. I had begun to recognize the lies I had always believed as truth, I could now reject them, but what was I to replace them with? This is where I was stuck. She then said it was time to pray over you so God would show you what to replace them with. As she did pray over me she said, “Let Earnie know to replace these lies with self-love, self-appreciation and self-confidence.” I now call these the 3-S’s. I asked her for a piece of paper so I could write the 3-S’s down so I wouldn’t forget them by the time I got home. She didn’t know what I was talking about so I repeated for her what she had prayed. She said, “That was the Holy Spirit talking, I have no recollection of that.”

I write this event because I now am coming into the realization of what self-love is. The first and big reality is that it is not arrogance as my father use to say to me. It is a peace that passeth all understanding–a contentment with oneself. I’d spent a lifetime hiding my past thinking it was who I am only to now realize it was done to me. It didn’t make me. God had done that with a purpose in mind. I’m finally getting there!