I have this bad habit of both forgetting and undermining all the wisdom and knowledge I've gained through the life experiences I've encountered, overcome, or endured with courage and faith.
If you are like me, this is a bad habit because it only causes unnecessary and false insecurity. This way of thinking would be like a soldier in a war who has all these powerful weapons to destroy the enemy deciding not to use them because he deems them weak and ineffective.
As I was talking to my group of church members, they were all sharing their life experiences and valuable lessons they've learned. The topics of discussion ranged from who are our close friends, people you are grateful for, work experiences, struggle with bosses to unfair treatment by others or horrible experiences with people. When they shared about their diverse experiences, my instant reaction was, "I don't have any of those," a false claim I was making for myself. Then, I made a conscious effort to think deep about my past experiences, and I was simply amazed at how much I could conjure up. We often easily forget about our experiences and too easily discredit ourselves from how much we've struggled and worked hard to become who we are today. So I urge you to write a diary to reflect on yourself, and have a healthy communion with others because it keeps you in check and in alignment with the reality.
The moral of the post is: your experiences are just as valid as any others' experiences, so learn to cherish them because they are the very reason you are who you are. And you have a lot more experience than you think you do.
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