Learning to Love Me

It's been YEARS literally since I've posted...but God bless the internet....it was right where I left it. So I guess I will just pick up where I left off...

Self love is a funny and somewhat tricky topic, it seems among believers. It really doesn't need to be that way, we just get weird when we find "religion" and make things strange that don't need to be that way. The whole of all the commandments were summed up by Jesus HImself when he said this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor AS YOURSELF. 

But what if you don't love yourself? What if you actually have areas where you breed and permit self-contempt and self-hatred? I think on some level, we all do this. And not only do we do this, we often can mistakenly slap a name on it like "humility" or somehow feel as if we are being more spiritual by having a less than God-declared opinion of ourselves.

My own story reflects this in some ways. I fell prey to the predictable and well-used weapon of comparing myself and my body to what the world told me it should be. Not only that though, I allowed these messages to declare to me that I was actually WORTH less because I wasn't measuring up to what the world said was beautiful and desirable. 

This was at its height in my mid teen years as I struggled with some eating issues. But my journey to be healthy and whole in my thinking, in my heart, in my actions unfolded over several decades.

The Lord has been faithful to address what has been broken in relationship to this struggle on every front. Body, mind, heart, spirit. He truly desires wholeness and because my wholeness cost him such a high price, He is relentless in pursuing it in me. I love this about Him. What a comfort to know that He does't give up or get distracted. Granted healing comes on His timeline and according to my cooperation with that so I do have a role, but I don't know what I don't know and have to trust His leading entirely. 

Having said that, I wanted to share some things He has taught me over the last five years that have really been game changers for me. Sometimes he utters wisdom that just readjusts the whole course and the two things I am going to share have been just that in regards to how I view myself and the resulting life then that flows out of that. 

I was in my room preparing to go somewhere. The old familiar feeling of frustration with myself began to rise up (I was probably bloated and something wasn't fitting that had fit before, honestly I don't exactly remember the cause). Usually what spewed out of my mouth or at least the flood of thoughts about myself that would have followed would've and often did drip with self-contempt and words that I wouldn't utter to a friend or foe for that matter! And at that moment, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror across the room and I "saw" me and I heard the Holy Spirit whisper to my heart, "Why can't you just love 'her'? Is she really that bad? That unacceptable?" and it was over. I felt a compassion for myself and grief over how hard I had been on me that I know was directly from His very heart. For a moment as I looked at me from across the room, I saw myself outside of me...I saw a woman who loves Jesus. A mom who loves her kids and cares for them. A wife who adores her husband. A friend who takes so much joy in the people God has blessed her to know. I saw me through His eyes and realized just how hard I had been on me. Give that woman a break!  It's been a long hard road...why don't you just speak life and encouragement over her instead.... Isn't that what I would do to a friend? And it would be real and truly how I felt. So why do I insist on treating myself differently? 

Shortly there after...the Lord called me out again, this time though, He was being more specific on exactly where to draw some boundaries as it related to how I treated myself. This time, I was casually in the midst of my self talk and wasn't feel particularly consumed with contempt....it was just a simple comment to myself about myself, "Oh, just five pounds, then you would be all good. Thats all really." Then again, I saw the face of a dear friend flash in my mind's eye and the Lord asked me, "Would you say that to her? Would you say that to your friend?" And immediately I answered, "No Lord! I would never say that to her...it would be so hurtful and not encouraging at all!" He answered, "Okay then. Don't say these things to yourself either." This was my line in the sand in regards to myself. When a thought goes through my head about me...sizing me up so to speak, I see the face of my dear friend and ask, "would I say this to or about her?" 

This has truly changed the way I view and treat myself. And I am so aware how subtle and constant my attitude toward myself was not honoring to Him and not respectful to me. I am in turn learning how to be a better friend to myself by employing grace towards me. How can we love our neighbors like ourselves when THIS exists towards ourselves??? 

Now...there is another angle to this that has to do with WHY we are hard on ourselves. I am sure there are a myriad of reasons, but mine was this. I at some point I listened to the world's assessment of me. I agreed I wasn't good enough...I missed the mark. Their opinion of me became MY opinion of me and I held that up over the assessment of God in my life. I said, in essence, "I am trading YOUR assessment of me for MY assessment of me" (at this point it WASNT just what the world says, because I agreed---I think often we think it's the world's view of us that we are fighting against when in reality, if we dig a little, we find we actually agree with it and that is what gives it it's power over us). 

With this idea that I wasn't enough, I became unacceptable to myself. So I had to work to become more acceptable to myself. I found that shame and self-contempt and self-hatred were powerful motivators. I would verbally lash myself into submission...the negative self talk isn't just a compilation of words...it is a weapon...it serves a purpose: to try and make ourselves do something...to reach a goal so that we can become something different so that we can be acceptable to ourselves. For me....I would diet in hopes I could become something I would like and approve of. I would exercise to try and attain a state of fitness I could be proud of so that I could line up with the assessment so that I would approve of myself. 

It has taken me YEARS to see this. To see this whole thing in operation. BUT I can say that God has truly set me free in so so many ways! I can look into a mirror and instead of hearing the lies and self-contempt, I have begun to hear his voice, "All together lovely" (Why do we give the mirror a voice and power to speak over us anyway??) I exercise now BECAUSE I like me and want to take care of me, not in order to like me. I try and eat right so that I can feel good and be in better health BECAUSE I love myself and appreciate the body God has given me while I'm here and want it to not wear out as a result of neglect, though it will wear out anyway. 

There is so much more joy and grace in this area toward myself than I've ever had before. I can laugh at my changing self more. When I exercise, I'm not driving myself like an angry condemning task master (no wonder I had such an aversion to working out for years....my unapproving self showed up with a verbal whip and unrealistic expectations that made attempting anything impossible to enjoy). I actually enjoy myself. I have even been asking myself the question, "What are you capable of?? Maybe I will try some new things just to see what this almost 40 year old body is able to accomplish...but not because I'm trying to earn my approval. It feels good. It feels like freedom. 

I have also realized that this new grace I can extend to myself, pours out on others. I feel more grace for others now that I have learned to love and walk in it for myself. While I may have been able to recognize when something was not a loving comment toward someone else deep inside we can't really offer true love and freedom and grace to others in our hearts that we don't experience/walk in ourselves. It doesn't work that way. When we allow self-contempt to have power and dictate our thoughts towards the way we view ourselves, we have to realize it is in essence giving authority to the enemy. He does not like a cage and won't stay in one, so some notion that we can entertain this self-depricating view while also trying to be loving and encouraging and having a healthy view of others is not possible. We will subconsciously place the same evaluations on others, the same expectations, the same assessments on those around us that we do on ourselves. 

I pray that me sharing this can help to put a finger on some things in your own journey that God may be stirring in you to want something different. Something more full of joy and peace and freedom.