Love Yourself

Love yourself for you.

Love yourself and then you will be empowered.

Love yourself and then you will be beautiful.

Love yourself and then other people will love you.

Love yourself and then you will be happy.

 

Does this sound familiar?  It should.  I know I've heard it from various sources for the majority of my life.  To some extent, the feel-good-gurus are right.  We do need to love ourselves, but not for the reasons that they usually give.

 

You and I, my dear readers, are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Made on purpose - no accidents here - with gifts and talents and beauty that is all our own.  This is why we should love ourselves.

Loving yourself shouldn't be something you have to make yourself do.  You should really love yourself - without effort.  If you find it difficult or you have to work at it, maybe you should take a good look inward and find out why.

Perhaps you struggle against a history of abuse: terrible things that were done or said to you to purposely make you feel like you have no value.  Perhaps it is because there is something about yourself that you truly dislike.  If you are the first, I am deeply sorry for what was done to you.  There are a lot of people who have dedicated their lives to helping people just like you, and, if you haven't already, I urge you to seek one of them out.  Talk to a counselor and let them help you.  A highly trusted resource of mine recommends www.purelyhisministry.com (thanks, girl!).

The majority of this post, however, will focus on the second type - mostly because I am limited to my own experience and this is the category I fell into.

Take a good long look inward.  What do you love about yourself?  What do you find that you struggle to love about yourself?  Here's the great news: You have the power to change the things you don't love about you.  (I'm not endorsing major and unhealthy plastic surgery here.  Let's be reasonable.)

Do you find that you have to make yourself say, "I love my body," and even then, you can tell that you are lying?  It's YOUR body.  You only get the one.  No replacements.  I'm not going to pat you on the hand and tell you it's okay to be obese.  Love your body!  It was made specifically for you by a loving God.  Don't you think you should love it enough to take care of it?  Go to your doctor first - tell him/her you'd like some help losing/gaining/maintaining weight.  Ask them what a healthy goal would be for you.  Please accept your doctor's advice - whether they tell you to lose some weight or gain some.  The benefits, bot psychologically and neurologically, of maintaining a healthy body weight are too numerous to list here.  I'm serious.  Look it up.  I will be the first to acknowledge that losing weight is hard.  If you love yourself, you'll do it.  Don't eat four cheeseburgers for dinner and then complain that you can't lose weight no matter how hard you try.  Get out there and do it.

You should love all aspects of yourself.  Don't like how messy of a person you are?  Get into a cleaning routine.  Keep yourself organized.  It will be hard.  It will be frustrating and maybe even discouraging at times.  You can build good habits into yourself just as easily as you can build bad habits.  The bad habits are usually just a bit more fun than the good ones.

Don't like how you do with money and budgets?  I have a hard time saying "no" to the temporary joy of a new pair of shoes in favor of the more satisfying - if less stunningly gorgeous - joy of knowing all my bills got paid this month.  There's help for that.  You can take a class - I recommend Dave Ramsey.  You can also talk to your bank or credit union; they usually have someone on staff who can help you.  Get a "Budgets for Dummies" book and get into a routine.  Maybe even talk to a close friend about doing some accountability.  I know how hard it is to walk away from a beautiful pair of shoes on sale.  But it's a lot easier when I can call a friend who will remind me that I don't NEED those shoes.

Don't like your job?  Brush up your resume.  See what else is out there.  See what kinds of furthering education steps you'll need to take to get the job you want.  You might find something that you love, or you may discover that you like your current job better than you thought.

Wish that you could sing better?  Dance better?  Speak another language?  Play piano?  Throw pottery on a wheel?  It is never too late to learn a new skill or just to have fun taking a community class.  You may be surprised by the self-confidence new skills can build into you.

Feeling overwhelmed yet?  Don't be.  You don't have to completely remake yourself all at once, overnight.  Life is an ongoing process.  Just pick one thing that YOU want to change for yourself and start there.  It will become a part of you before you know it.  Everyone is different - your struggles aren't going to be the same as mine here.  And these aren't even all the issues I fight against!

Don't force yourself to say that you love something about yourself that you really don't.  Don't try to accept things just because someone out there said that "we have to love ourselves just the way we are."  Take the stewardship of your body and mind and soul seriously.  Love yourself because you really love who you are and what you are doing with your life!

"Love your neighbor as you love yourself" is repeated 8 times in the Bible.  When we can freely love ourselves, it empowers us to love others around us.  Through our love, they meet the love of the Father and the lovely things about themselves they may have forgotten.