The great fact is this. God loves you. God loves me. Unconditionally, passionately, deeply, unfathomably.
My loving Him is a response to His love for me. I don't have to strain, grunt and groan to work up love for Him; the more I realize how much He loves me, the more I will automatically (in my gratitude) love Him. That's how it works.
In the same way, and again as a response to His love for me, (the thought process is that God accepts me the way I am, so I can accept me the way I am too) I can love myself. Not in a narcissistic kind of way - just in a way that allows me to look after myself, to cut myself a break when I mess up, and to feel comfortable with occupying space in the world. That ability to be a friend to myself helps me have healthy relationships with others, to love them as they need to be loved (not smothered, not pounded into submission, but loved for who they are).
This acceptance and love of myself (and others) includes having emotions. I don't know where folks get this idea, but I run up against it over and over again in both Christian and non-Christian circles - the idea that emotions are for babies.
Or just for girly-girls.
I told a friend just today that stoicism (in my experience) is a sign of severe dysfunction.
It is the capacity to feel emotion as deeply as we do, that makes us human. Including men - and in our western culture, I would say especially men, who are told from a very young age that "big boys don't cry." Nonsense! This capacity to feel emotion for our own sufferings and allow ourselves to do so, makes us better friends to others in their time of need, as a direct outflow of our own ability to care for ourselves.
It is appropriate to feel strong emotion when in a situation of grief, loss, injustice, and so forth. At such times we can befriend ourselves, treat ourselves (to turn the Golden Rule around) the way we wish others would treat us, the way we would treat a friend who was hurting: with love, acceptance, and compassion.
Well said! We've taken the old Greek philosophy of Stoicism and we've called it 'Christian' or 'normal' and, as you say, it's really just everyday dysfunctional! And it's dishonest.
ReplyDeleteDishonest. Yes.
ReplyDeleteAnd you reminded me Brian, thanks! Much of what passes for Christian belief today is not that at all, but a rehash of (or a mix of) Greek Stoicism, Buddhism (aka masochism to invite suffering), or Communism (losing the I to the we, trusting the organization to care for its subjects - example: trusting the church to provide for the Christian education of our children and thus abdicating our responsibility as parents.) Great observation!
I had this realization today, that I'm not loving others as God intended ALL of the time. This will be an effort...to change my internal thinking/reacting.
ReplyDeleteAs for loving myself and allowing emotions, that was an enlightening moment for me a while ago. Finally I thought to myself that if I love God and I'm God's child how can I disrespect Him so much by hating myself and not accepting who I am....emotions and all.
Some great insights. I'm still working on loving myself and seeing myself as God sees me. An image that has worked for me is to imagine myself as a child -or as my daughter. I try to treat myself with respect and love like I'd love for her to treat herself... if that makes sense. Its a process and doesn't come easily, but definitely easier than years past.
ReplyDeleteYes! Part of my recovery was re-parenting my inner child. Sounds mystical and all that; it's not. The child that I remember being so afraid, the one who cowered in fear in her mother's closet while blows rained down, needed to be told that she was worth more than she knew or could possibly imagine. From the messages that those early growing-up experiences gave me, I had created a list of beliefs about myself - false and irrational beliefs that erased my inner borders and made me abdicate my right to exist - and I found it helpful to write those beliefs down.
ReplyDeleteThen I wrote another list of affirmations that countered those false beliefs, and I spoke those affirmations to that terrified little girl until she came out of the shadows and started to believe that she was allowed to take up space in the world, that she was worth far more than what she was led to believe. And slowly that little girl started to grow up inside of me. She's no longer 7 or 8. Now she's about 10ish, and exploring things she never thought possible.
One of my favorite scenes from the Disney animated movies is the scene from "The Lion King" where Mufasa appears to his son, Simba, who is in self-imposed exile out in the wilderness. [He has denied his heritage, living in shame and fear for the part he believes he played in his father's death (he believed a lie told to him in his youth - does that sound familiar or what).] Anyway, Mufasa tells Simba (among other things), "Remember who you are."
That simple phrase has come to my rescue many times, and still does. I am more than what I have become. I am His child, a member of the Royal Family.