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Showing posts from December, 2014

Why I Can Honestly Tell My Kids "You're Special"

When I was growing up and someone would tell me, "You're special!" I would always wonder what they meant by that.  I was never sure if this was a compliment or if it was a condolence prize to make me feel better when I didn't feel better than I did.  Sometimes people would say, "You are SO special!" or, "God made you special!" The word 'special' began to mean nothing to me.  I thought about what it means to be special and realized that I figured since everyone in the world is someone God made, then telling everyone they're special means absolutely nothing.  Being special, I thought, should mean one is outstanding, better, set-apart from the rest.  I thought to be special I had to do or be something extraordinary - or aspire to some high ambition or demonstrate a quality that no-one else could possess. In the end I just figured people who told me I was special were just being nice and didn't really know me that well, or just ign