"Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed."

Why should a simple prayer, uttered in anticipation of receiving the Lords' blessing, carry such power over how I felt about myself? Believe me, it certainly was a mystery to me but as I considered the possibility, the part that is missing here turned out to be really, really crucial to my sense of self worth and deservability. This is HUGE! I wanted to shout it from the roof tops! No one ever told me, I WAS HEALED! Now, I suppose most will think this is a trivial point but lets consider the facts as they were presented to me. If I believed in the church being the only real authority in my life, even being a step above my parents, how could I have arrived at any other conclusion? Especially so, coming from a child's leve of maturity and worldly experience? After all, during most of the traditional prayers of my Catholic faith, I was always asking for forgiveness for something. Sometimes, in perparation for confession, I really had to rack my brain to come up with something considered a sin needing forgiving, in order to go into the confessional and perform the asking for forgiveness ritual I was being told I needed every now and then, to stay worthy of God's love. Such was the beginning of creating within me a belief that I most certainly was carrying around a whole lot of imperfections that needed working on, sin that needed absolution, and  a deep fear that I must really be evil inside. Yet, I had no conscious knowing as to how deeply I internalized this teaching until recently. After yet another session with my life coach/energy therapist, I found myself wanting to follow her advice of accepting and loving myself but in just thinking about it, I felt the small child within me start to wring her hands in fear of doing that very thing, not knowing where to start, not knowing if I could start! I was literally frozen in my place, terrified of what would happen to me if I actually felt good about myself, much less think I was worthy enough to have any of my dreams come true. That was the moment where my therapist looked at me, in astonishment, realizing how deeply I held this belief and as a result, how restricted I had allowed my options for my life to be, based upon this distorted concept. And then she struggled to hide her sadness for me, understanding for the first time how much this belief must have limited the choices I would allow myself to make. I was always settling for less than my true desires, believing that is all I thought I was worth. I was always thinking small, way too fearful to shoot for the moon, willing myself into acceptance that how far I went was enough. Now I could understand why I was always discontent, to some degree, with where I was at in my life. I developed so much fear over the years because of it. I hated where I was at, living a rather predictable, 'safe' life, bored to tears, completely unfulfilled, letting very little life force flow through me. But I kept pushing, searching, refusing to accept that this is all there is, intentionally getting to know who I really was and in the process, healing the hurts, challenging and correcting the B.S. I had taken on as my own and finally, finally finding my way home to the Lightworker courses and my own family of likeness. And for that, I am really grateful that I never gave up on myself or my dreams. For now, for the first time in my life, I am living my life the way I envisioned but minus the feeling that I just wasn't worthy of this wondrous happiness I am learning to embrace every day.