Learning to Love Yourself

Ministerial Meandering 

Learning to love yourself

I can’t be the only one who looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘I wish I hadn’t’ sometimes.  It is so easy to be dissatisfied with what we see, and for those of us who are beginning to feel a little anxious around Thanksgiving when we look at our neck skin, we can have a sense of unfairness - even resentment - that our bodies have changed, seemingly overnight.  And definitely without our permission.

Where the hell did that muffin top come from; who and how did someone manage to iron my face into a crinkle-cut chip without me noticing?

But it isn’t just our outward appearance that seems to have altered.  For me, at least, I seem to have a calendar and wristwatch that are set onto ‘express-speed’.  It seems that hours fly past in minutes, and I have to rip yesterday’s page off my Far Side calendar about once an hour.  Every time I look up, the month is spelt differently than it was just 40 minutes ago.

There is a sense of urgency that accompanies all of this - in my life, anyway.  I have so much still to do - and my biggest problem is deciding how to prioritize what needs to be done.  It is not as though I have a bucket list; I don’t think I do.  Well, perhaps a short one - like building a log cabin to live in and have a couple of donkeys grazing with a cow - and maybe a few more dogs…but nothing too outrageous.  I doubt that I’ll go down the Amazon on a canoe now - they (whoever ‘they’ are) probably wouldn’t let me.  The nearest I might get to that would be buying a canoe from Amazon.

However, I have no difficulty facing the possible end of my life, though I think I might have been kinder to myself.  My type of personality is always striving to be better - but I wouldn’t say I’m a perfectionist.  Some might disagree.  But being even close to that way of thinking can leave us feeling dissatisfied with ourselves, and unwilling to accept and love who we are - just for being who we are.

That is a failing in its own right.  It suggests that God made a mistake when He made us - He somehow made a defective ‘Friday’ product, before He took the weekend off - so we must have been a rush-job.

That is not a healthy approach to our God and Saviour.  It is not our job to tell Him what he should have done with the clay He used to make us.  If He made us this way - then it was because He wanted us this way.  We are told that He ‘saw that it was good’.  Which means that He loved what He saw - just as Jesus loved all the people he met - not just some of them.

It is true to say that Jesus didn’t like all the people he met, and had some harsh words for some of them - but nonetheless, he still went to the Cross for all of us - not just for some of us, not just for his disciples, not just for his favourites.

If Jesus could love me that much when I think I’m not worth much, maybe it’s time I reconsidered.  It is much more likely that Jesus is right and I am wrong in my assessment.  That means not only can I allow myself to accept myself as I am - but that I should accept myself as I am.

And learning in this way to love myself, I can begin to understand the words of the hymn; ‘Just as I am, without one plea - but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee - O Lamb of God, I come.’

Philip+