How Do I Accept Who I Am?

FB Smit

Since the earliest times, humans have questioned their existence in the world. Questions about the purpose and significance of life include:

• Who is God to Me?
• How do I Hear God?
• Who Am I?
• What Am I Worth?
• How Do I Accept Who I Am?
• Does God Want Me to Be Happy?
• Is it All Up to Me?
• Why Do I Suffer?

Through inner healing prayer, we ask God How Do I Accept Who I Am?

You are created in the likeness and image of God. You are unrepeatable and lovable. Everything about you is just as God designed it, down to the number of hairs on your head. Do you believe this? If life were perfect, we would wholeheartedly embrace this reality and live in its fullness.

But in the fallen world in which we live, we accumulate untruths about ourselves. We believe condemnations that are spoken aloud or embrace internal voices whispered by the enemy. Like a hammer slamming a perfectly hewn shiny metal sheet, lies warp the truth.

One prayer exercise employed in inner healing around self-acceptance is called Back to the Womb. The goal of Back to the Womb is to embrace who God made us to be as a separate person from our parents, even apart from the circumstances of our birth.

Faith

An example of the Back to the Womb application came when Faith, a 17-year-old adopted as an infant, came for inner healing prayer. Even though she grew up in a loving home, the pain of rejection from her biological parents had shattered her self-image and love.

To help Faith with self-acceptance, the prayer facilitator led her through the Back to the Womb exercise. First, the prayer guide invited Faith to invoke the Holy Spirit and cup her hands before her. 

Imagine an egg in your right hand that has all the information needed to connect with the one-of-a-million sperm in her left hand.

Out of all of the eggs that Mom had in her reproductive system, the beauty and the power of our creator are such that the right egg was in the right place at the right time to make you. Now, visualize one specific sperm on the other hand. The Lord knew how to have the right one at the right place and time to connect with the egg to conceive you.

The next step is to close your hands together for conception. But, before you do, say, “I accept me as the unique and unrepeatable human being that you God have made.” Thank the Lord for the gift of you! Once done, you can close your hands together to symbolize conception.

Faith paused before she put her hands together. It didn't take long for her to close her hands into a clap, with fingers interlaced.

Next, the prayer facilitator said, The Lord is so pleased with whom he's made. He tells you, “You're awesome, you're lovely, you're beautiful, and I am proud of you. You are starting your journey through life, and we are here with you.” 

Faith's eyes remained closed, and her hands clasped together as the facilitator continued. 

Picture Jesus receiving you as you come from your Mom. He ensures you are OK, and Jesus wraps you in a warm blanket and holds you.

At this, Faith perceived an internal knowing that her adoption wasn’t a rejection. Her birth mother had very much loved her and had watched Jesus ensure she was okay. She had held her in the soft pastel blanket just as Jesus had. The love she absorbed from her mother and the Lord squeezed at her heart. With tears and a sigh of relief, Faith could finally let go to love and accept herself, her circumstances, and the two people God brought together to create her.

About ten years after the prayer session, the facilitator had a chance to talk to Faith about her life and how she was doing. “Even after all these years,” Faith exclaimed, “that inner healing was one of the most impactful experiences I’ve ever had!” Amen to that!

Awareness for Deeper Healing

The prayer is powerful and can help us see areas we are unaware of. One man, Eric, needed help to complete the exercise. He was asked, “Once you accept yourself, you can close your hands together to symbolize conception..." 

At this, Eric’s jaws clenched, his shoulders tightened, and he began sobbing. Even with time and space, he could not get past the point of accepting God's desire to create him. He could not accept himself.

Eric's story is a compelling reminder that God respects our free will and even desires that we choose our goodness.

Erin

Another example of the Back to the Womb exercise is when Erin, a woman in her mid-60s, was guided through the prayer exercise at a Resurrected Life’s Be Loved retreat. 

Erin distinctly recalled discovering her lovable and beautiful self for the first time when she was three years old. In the entryway of her home was a large mirror hanging above a table. The light bouncing and reflecting off the shiny mirror invited Erin to pull out the wooden stool tucked under the table, climb onto it, and take a good look at herself.

When she did, it was as though she saw herself for the first time. She marveled at her reflection and was surprised by her beauty. She loved everything she saw, and in that moment, she adored and accepted herself completely.

To continue admiring herself, she rested her elbows on the table, cupped her face with her hands, and kept staring. She was in awe.

When her father entered the foyer and saw her teetering on the precarious stool, he scolded her, “Get down from the stool. You’ll get hurt. Stop looking at yourself!”

Her self-admiration came to a halt. She climbed down. Although her father was concerned for her safety, she internalized his reprimand as something altogether different. She associated her self-admiration with something shameful.

The wonder of her uniqueness and self-love shattered into disgrace. The shard of a lie embedded into Erin that admiring and viewing herself as lovable and beautiful was wrong. The lie warped the truth.

Since the mirror incident at three years old, she harbored additional lies and shame about herself. Although she had been in therapy for years, she was unable to accept herself thoroughly.

At a point in the Back to the Womb exercise, after your inner child is born, the facilitator asks you to imagine:

Jesus whispers in your ear, “You're awesome, you're lovely, and you have come out precisely the way we envisioned you would. You're so cute. We're proud of you. We are glad you're here. We're going to be with you forever.”

Jesus takes you as an infant and places you, your inner child, on your mommy's stomach. Jesus says, “We'll cut the umbilical cord, but I need your help. You can make scissors with your fingers and cut the cord, but before you do, I invite you to say, I accept me as unique, unrepeatable, and wholly acceptable.”

 As you say this, move your fingers with a scissor motion. Cut the cord from your Mom.

Now imagine Jesus wrapping you in a warm blanket. He carries you, the baby, back to your adult self. You say, “Jesus, thank you for me. I want to love and nurture her so well, but I don't know how to do it!”

Hear Jesus say, “I will be with you. We will do this together, have fun, learn, and grow.”

Post prayer session, Erin’s therapist, after years of working with Erin with little progress, was floored by an overnight change in her. Seeing the dramatic difference in her client, the therapist contacted the facilitator to ask for the prayers she used with Erin. She was so moved by Erin’s transformation that the therapist herself came for inner healing prayers.

If you bought into the lie, then accepting and loving yourself as God's design is like unwarping a hammered metal or polishing a cloudy, stained mirror to a sheen so bright as to reflect undistorted God's beauty and love. Christ has incubated in you a new reality, a rebirth, a fresh start, wherein He calls you beautiful (or handsome) and liberates you to a new life in Him.

Psalm 139:14: "I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self, you know."