Self-worth

In aiming to achieve my '20 before 30' goal of reading all the books on my bookshelf, I have just finished reading a book called 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett. It is written from the perspective of black women who worked for white families as domestic help in the civil rights movement in the 1960's in South America.

There is a certain part of the book that touched me so much as a mother. One of the women the book focuses on, called Aibileen, was describing the joy she felt from bringing up the white children. Although she was not their mother by birth, she loved them dearly like her own.

One particular child she was very fond of, partly because the child's own mother seemed to neglect her duties and never spent any quality time with the child. The poor child never recieved any words of praise or comfort from her mother, and so Aibileen took it upon herself to instill some self-worth into this little girl.

One particular scene that stood out to me was when Aibileen scooped the girl up into her arms and whispered the word's

'You is kind. You is smart. You is important.'

She repeated those words to that little girl throughout her childhood, hoping that she would believe in them. That she was somebody. That she was loved.

I took these words to heart and it made me realise how profoundly important it is that we repeat these same words to our own children. So they realise their worth. To us, and to heavenly father.