Choosing to love

This past Sunday, Pastor said something that resonated with me. He spoke on Matthew 22:36-39, which if you don't know what that is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

We always hear, "love God, love others." But last Sunday Pastor said it in a way I'd never hear or realized before. He said "we have to learn to love ourselves before we can loves others the way God wants us to." We have to learn to love ourselves the way God loves us in order to love others the way He wants us to. For if we don't love ourselves, how can we love others the way love ourselves. (Kind of confusing, but still 100% truth).

How many times do us as women look in the mirror and say 'uck' and not like what we see? How many times do we call ouselves stupid or ugly, or think on the past things people have said about us as truth and take them to heart? How many of us don't remember how to love ourselves anymore because we're so conditioned by the world that we aren't good enough? That we aren't lovable or likable unelss we have the right amount of followers, or have the next best makeup, or the right clothing. How many of us have used our ex leaving us, as a way to not love ourselves, thinking if we were only better, they would have stayed?

I know this because I have been there. I have felt worthless, numb, dumb, ugly, bitter and I have called myself more names than I can count. But I will no longer allow those things to define me. God loved me so much, that He sent his son to die for me. He calls me beloved (dearly loved), He calls me friend, He calls me daughter. He doesn't hold my past against me, he doesn't think I'm worthless. He was waiting for me to look up and see that He's never left me. A neverending love that nothing I could ever do would change that.

So how do we learn to love ourselves the way we should? It's a choice. It's a decision we make, every day. God chooses me, and every day I will choose to love him. I will choose to learn to love me again. The me that God created uniquely and for a purpose. I have a notebook dedicated to start writing all the things I love about myself, my passions, my likes, my dislikes and my dreams.

And I'm also reading the book Her True Worth by Brittany. Maher and Cassandra Speer. READ IT! It is absolutely eye opening and mind blowing. It'll help you, like it's helping me, create habits and a mindset to be grounded and embracing who you are in Christ. My next journal entry will be what I'm learning about myself through reading this book, what it's teaching me and how I'm implimenting it into my daily life.

But dear hearts hear me when I say, all of those horrible things we tell ourselves about are lies. Lies the enemy wants us to believe about ourselves, so we don't walk in our true purpose and identity, so we don't walk in true freedom. You and I are worthy, You and I are loved. We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14). The God of the universe knows my name, He knows your name. And you are beautiful. Believe that.