CELERY
When I was younger, I looked at myself through the eyes of my parents and my older siblings. Like every child, I longed for their approval, affirmation, and love. Without realizing it, the way they saw me gradually became the way I saw myself.
Many of those expectations and perceptions left me with a negative image of myself. I grew up receiving very little affirmation and carried a deep insecurity about who I was. I often wondered whether I was enough.
Looking back today, I do not write this to blame anyone. My parents and siblings loved me in the best way they knew how. Like all of us, they were shaped by their own experiences, struggles, and limitations.
As I grew older, other voices took their place. Teachers, friends, society, and the world all had expectations of who I should be and what I should become. Before I knew it, I had allowed those voices to define me.
For many years, I lived that way. Then, without my fully realizing it, God began a quiet work within me. He did not change me overnight. He patiently renewed my mind, healed old wounds, and awakened my heart. Little by little, He taught me to see myself—not through the eyes of others—but through His.
That awakening continues to this day.
Just today, while exchanging messages with friends on Viber, I found myself sharing the one simple formula that has guided my life for many years: “I have only one simple formula that works for me. I live one day at a time. Each day, I simply try to respond to what God wants me to think, say, and do. The rest—the results—are His.”
Around that same time, another friend sent me a beautiful photograph of a little bird. As I quietly looked at it, something stirred within me. I felt inspired to create a magazine page with the bird, my reflection, and the title, The Way I See Me.
The bird was simply being a bird. It was not trying to become another bird. It was not comparing itself with any other creature. It simply perched on the branch, living the life its Creator had given it.
As I reflected on the bird and on what I had just shared with my friends, something suddenly connected.
I felt like that little bird.
It simply lives one day at a time, just as God created it. It does not strive to be anything else. It simply is—beautiful in the colorful feathers its Creator lovingly gave it.
Perhaps God has been inviting me to live that way all along—to stop measuring myself by the expectations of others, to stop comparing myself with them, and to stop trying to become someone I was never created to be.
Instead, He has been inviting me to gratefully embrace the unique person He created me to be.
As that realization settled in my heart, another truth quietly followed.
The more I accepted myself through God’s loving eyes, the easier it became to accept others through those same eyes.
Every person I meet has a story.
Every person carries hidden joys and hidden wounds.
Every person has been lovingly created by God.
Every person is worthy of dignity, compassion, and love.
Then I began noticing something else.
The Holy Spirit was opening the doors of my heart ever wider, allowing me to see God’s world with the wonder of a child. Things that once seemed ordinary suddenly became extraordinary—a little bird resting on a branch, the first light of morning, the quiet whisper of the wind.
These moments were no longer simply part of nature. They had become gentle reminders that God is always present.
Only later did I realize that St. Paul had already described this beautiful transformation centuries ago:
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Romans 12:2
I smiled when I read those words again.
This is exactly what God has been doing in me.
He has been renewing my mind—not simply changing the way I think, but changing the way I see.
As I see myself differently, I see others differently. I see the world differently. And because I see differently, I live differently—one day at a time, listening, trusting, and responding to what God asks me to think, say, and do, while leaving every outcome in His loving hands.
Perhaps that is what Jesus meant when He invited us to become like little children.
Children trust. Children wonder. Children receive each day as a gift.
My prayer today is simple.
Lord, keep renewing my mind. Help me to see myself as You see me. Help me to see others as You see them. Help me to recognize Your presence in the ordinary moments of every day. And give me the grace to faithfully respond to what You ask me to think, say, and do.
The rest—the results—I leave entirely to You.