OK, so much happened at Roots that I could blog about. And I probably will, but I'm going to do it in little chunks, as each one sorts itself out in my brain.
So for now, here is a question.
Matthew 22 v 37 (The Message)
"Jesus said, 'Love the Lord Your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: Love others as well as you love yourself. These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them'"
What if you don't love yourself? What hope do "Others" have?
3 comments:
I suppose the biblically based answer is, being made in God's image, how could we not love our selves?
Humanly, I don't know.
A very wise person posed an interesteing suggestion to me the other day. She wondered whether that there may be a difference between loving ourselves and liking ourselves.
What is loving ourselves? Could it be making sure our needs (and our desires) are looked after. Could it be that self esteem/self worth issues are more about us not liking ourselves than us not loving ourselves?
If this is the difference between loving and liking, then I guess I tend to love myself a fair bit, and I tend to like other people. But do I like myself? And far more importantly, do I love other people? If this distinction is true, then how can I love others?... By making sure their needs are met in the same way I would ensure my own are.
I think it all comes down to that fundamental need to stay alive. Even if sometimes or ALL the time, we don't love ourselves, everyday we are still here must mean we have some regard for this thing that we call our body and the stuff our skin keeps inside it.
I think, also we can compensate for not loving/ liking ourselves much by loving and liking others MORE - we can't be examining ourselves too closely when we are concerned for another's wellbeing or are closely analysing anothers motives.
It's not a particularly good or wise comment, but it might help or even explain stuff, alongside the other comments that have been left - and for all you guys that are struggling with this, whoever you are - I really do love you X
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