Lord, I heard a mother say to her little child the other day: "Be careful what you say. I want you to make a good impression."
That is what most of us are busy trying to do each day, dear God. We are trying to make good impressions. We are trying to be so very careful because if we are not our impressions will not always be very attractive ones.
Maybe that is our problem. Maybe we are trying too hard. Maybe we impress the least when we try to impress the most.
The more careful we are at getting our impressions right the more often we end up getting them all wrong.
Please help me, Lord, to present myself as I am and not as I think someone else wants me to be. Keep me from dressing up my true self in appearances that no one who truly knows me well would recognize as being the real me. Whatever I am, on any given day, let it be honestly me not some close approximation of the real thing.
Help me to love myself as I truly am so I can put everyone who meets me at ease. Make a good impression on me, dear God, so I won't have to be so concerned with making one on everyone else.
Love,
Larry
