THE BENEFITS OF ESTEEMING
As women, one of our greatest assets is the power of influence - the ability to strengthen, nurture and undergird the inner underdog in the fiercest of fights against one's self.
Recently I read one of the most flattering and insightful pieces about the life and filmography of Octavia Spencer, who won an Oscar in 2012 for the best-supporting actress. The esteemed actress who played Minny Jackson, a strong-willed maid in the movie The Help and a NASA mathematician in last year's Hidden Figures she epitomized the uniquely unpolished role of a woman bonded to the indelible truth of esteeming others - even when nobody sees it but you! Although the superbity of each role encompassed the unveiling of her innermost convictions, the underlying trajectory of her characters was laden with subliminal epithets of powerful "chic power." Each character regardless of their mental, physical, financial or socio-economic well-being emphatically submerged themselves in the fluidity of esteeming the other beyond themselves!
I'm reminded of Mary, the mother of Jesus and her cousin Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1:39-56) both expectantly expecting (one a virgin and the other a new mother at eighty eight years of age) while desperately longing for the conformity of acceptance and the authentic tenderness of being esteemed beyond their natural ability. Like many of us, the isolation of doubt set against the backdrop of not wanting to appear "needy or insecure" can sometimes make us prime candidates for the absence of having supportive sistah-girl power in our lives.
If you're anything like me, I absolutely love being the embodiment of esteeming another woman (within their personal boundaries) forward in seasons of wavering, doubt or simply temporal onsets of emotional fickleness. Let's keep it one hundred on the canvas; our paint may be different colors, but we're all in need of the artistry and authenticity of being celebrated outside of ourselves!
American writer Elbert Hubbard once said, "We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them." There's nothing more rewarding than being given the liberality to empower the beautification of self-awareness through the reinforcement of esteeming another whether in their season of prosperity, indecisiveness or wretchedness (uncomplimentary behavior or mindset)! For real, we've all been there more times than we care to remember and are grateful for His Grace!
I'm reminded of the many opportunities I've been given to esteem others above myself only to have it not reciprocated. Now that's real talk! You see, over the years, like many of you, I've learned through the Holy Spirit how to see the beneficialness of esteeming others from a secure place in Christ! In other words, we could all do better when it comes to embracing other women in the cesspool of their unpolished areas.
Irrespective of where each one of us is on our journey, might we not become complacent in rendering spoken or unspoken sound bites of affirmations to one another while navigating our respective uniquely unpolished areas?