2019-03-14 Lent Thursday. I didn’t always love being me.

Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind.’ This is the first and most important commandment. And the second is like it. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ Everything that is written in the Law and the Prophets is based on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40

Important realization: The wisdom of loving yourself before you can make progress of significant changes isn’t just about body image and how much you weigh, it applies to anything you take on or would like to accomplish.

If I told you that there was a day that I was so shy that I couldn’t raise my hand in class to answer a question. Hard to believe, even for me. Now I take what I know about myself, good or not so good and build on what I know. Good - get better. Not so good - try something different. Always striving to make a difference, to live fully. To know the richness that comes with loving my life in its abundance and in its poverty.

I don’t want to be a fake. Others know when they are in the presence of a fake. Communication and bonding have a hard time taking hold among fakes. When I accept and love myself then I have something to offer to another. How does that saying go? Love your neighbor as yourself? Have you heard that? I often wonder how there can be any real love in the world if people walk around not having a clue about what it is like to love themselves.

I think for a lot of us, who have been brought up with a focus on unworthiness and sin as compared to our tremendous worth, uniqueness and our blessedness having been made a little less than the angels, in the image and likeness of God, --that focus, of unworthy and being sin riddled, has been a significant part of our spiritual formation. Sad to say.

Somehow the message has been severely misconstrued. Just refer to this scripture from the mouth of Jesus, the long and short of it: We MUST LOVE OURSELVES FIRST. This is not a BAD THING. It is the way it was meant to be. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Pretty direct, wouldn't you agree. See - can’t get on with the real work of loving others until you figured it out at home, how to love yourself.

Look in the mirror lately? Selfies work very well too!
Are you uncomfortable telling yourself how loved s/he is?
Don’t walk away yet.
Take a good look - right in the eyes - just the way you would with another that you think you love.
Feel the love sent and received from the priceless, precious, person…YOU!

Now you are ready to tell someone else how loved they are. Got it?
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt 22:37-40

Here are some pictures - selfies -
All about loving me, just as I am!
....and having more of me available to love YOU!