Dana LeShaun Burke Butler

This is maybe one of the first photos I ever loved of myself. Call me vain, but I was well into my 40's here and all the years before, not only did I not like to see pictures of myself, at some point a few years before this picture, I realized that I didn't love me. I was born third into a family of 6 girls, now beautiful women. I always felt less pretty and fatter than all of them, like the ugly duckling that wasn't the same as all the other cute little yellow ducks. Some may say waahhhh, I don't share it for sympathy, it was just the way I felt. I look up to each of them, love and cherish them so much and from going through so much with them, we have such a bond between us. I've seen each of them go through such harrowing hard things that bonds me even deeper to them. Any way if anyone reads this and recognizes you don't have love for yourself, I say choose to love you! You are so loved and are so worth being loved ❤️It took looking at myself directly in the mirror and repeating to my inner self, I love you I love you I love you... at some point something happened and tears began to flow and mascara with it, but for the first time, I was looking at my reflection and I just somehow believed the words that I was saying to myself, and believed that my Father in Heaven loves me as imperfect as I am, but to him I am perfectly me. There are a few scriptures that helped me recognize the importance of loving ourselves that I'll share here Matt. 22:37-40 and D&C 18:15-16. One day it just occurred to me that the "one" I need to bring first is myself. Then with the first scripture, if I was commanded to love my brethren as myself, it indicates to me, that first I need to love Me💕