(This short article was originally written back in 2019 and was taken down while I was experiencing some change as a writer. Upon revisiting this article, I felt the pull to revise it and return it to its position on the blog. Here is the article again. I pray it blesses each one of you who reads.)
LEARNING TO LOVE ONESELF
For many years growing up, I didn’t know how to love myself. Learning about loving myself has taken time, and also has required a growth of my faith for me to see that the love of God is vastly more powerful and complex than the love of humans. In fact, learning to love myself has also been a matter of accepting the parts of me which felt most rejected by others, and understanding their rejection was actually a part of themselves they were rejecting.
THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
Taking rejection personally, I’ve learned, is a basis for feeling shame. “I must not be good enough for them to be rejecting me” is the lie I believed. In the shame, I found myself feeling unlovable.
What needed to happen first was identifying the lie by recognizing it as an untruth. I recognized the untruth by knowing the real truth sets people free (John: 8:31-32). Feeling unlovable was a prison cell, clearly the opposite of emotional freedom.
INVESTIGATING THE EVIDENCE
Then, I investigated the lie backwards to understand the real truth covered underneath. People who are unchained by the Truth don’t judge the Truth, they are instead led by it; meaning, those who aren’t led by it are judging themselves according to lies.
Finally, if others who are led by lies are judging me, what do I have to fear? God is for me (Romans 8:31).
LEARNING TO APPLY THE TRUTH
By surrendering the lie that I am rejected, I allow myself to be open to be loved by God, which then helps me love myself.
To love oneself, we accept who we are in God’s eyes. We are His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). We are made worthy of His love because of Jesus’s sacrifice for us on our behalf. This is the Truth that sets each of us free when the enemy rejects us through a person living out of a lie.
HUMBLED BY GOD’S LOVE
What’s beautiful about loving ourselves based on God’s love for us is that His love is perfect, and it is forever. He doesn’t love us conditionally. So when we love ourselves based on His love for us, we can be humbled in remembering how Christ died and rose again because of just how deep God’s love is for us.
What does being loved by God look like for you? How can accepting, embracing, and believing this truth help you to help others experience God’s love for them? If someone you know is living in this type of circumstance where loving themselves is showing as difficult, pray and consider how God is calling you to show up for them to help bring them out of that lie and into the God’s truth; His love. Bless them, and be prepared for God to move radically in their heart, and in yours.
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