proudly arriving at the enlightenment around my senior year in high school, at the eave of my boyfriend breaking up with me in the all of a sudden rupture to the 'I thought we were going to be significant' type of entitlement, in and the vacancy of misinterpreted reality where I thought life although couldn't be planned, had back allies and ways of short cutting to the good stuff..I arrived at the vision that I didn't need him, or anyone for that matter. That I was just dependent on him for a love I didn't have in myself. I was insecure, I was unsure, I was in high school. I was convinced that God had different plans for me, and I was too inept to see them and focused my plans on him instead. So, for the next two years of college I focused on the prime care-taker of all these future plans, the master of the show; me. Although I dated, I never really put my whole heart into anything or anyone for that matter, I'm sure all of them can tell you that and in reality I realize it was selfish, but the whole time it wasn't for my gratification, it was to make them happy because they seemed so sure about something I was just waiting to be sure about.
It was at this point it dawned on me, you need to love yourself before you love someone else, otherwise you will require in them a need for something you don't have. The phrase "you complete me" really did me in, I really hated it. I thought "I am whole, I don't need anyone else to complete me. I have God, I don't need anyone else."
but it wasn't until literally the past few days when I realized that there is something skewed about this whole proposition. the whole "I have to love myself before I love someone else, I have to focus on me before I can take care of someone else, I have to finish my plans before I involve anyone else." Who gave us that authority, and why do we deserve it? I realized as much time as I've spent trying to clear my head, as much time as I've spent single (4 years now, with no consistent boyfriend and only dates, my last one being a year prior to this post -) I've only concluded that I don't like myself any more or any less, I don't find myself more beautiful, more appealing, more intelligent, more confident than before, I only find that I understand myself more, and in a sense, that's not always a safe thing. The more people invest in themselves, the more they expect out of others and the more they look at themselves as worthy, the more they won't stand for anyone who treats them differently. This is the lie I've been believing.
I think I should start from the beginning (where all things appropriately stem), I am absolutely nothing. I have no credence, or mind or ability to create the things on this earth nor the capacity for Him who created me. Without God, without Jesus, I'm nothing. But He makes me something. That is something I can boast in, I cannot be confident in myself, but I can be confident in what He can do through me. I think I could stand to be a little more insecure, at least it would constantly put me in touch with reality. I have a lot of problems with my appearance, but at surface value, I only do because I believe I'm something better, that I don't deserve to have things wrong with me. When in actuality, I am not the author of what I do and do not deserve, for all of the sin that we as a human race have done, that I myself have done, I don't deserve to have anyone look at me at all. This isn't an unhealthy dwelling on my flaws, its realizing that I always fall short of God's glory and the humanity in that is what makes Him praiseworthy, that there is always something He can help me with. Right now, it is caring for others. Because with this lie, the past four years of my life has been devoted to seeking out my identity, wondering who I am, where I want to go, preparing myself as it were, (all the while thinking, this will humbly show the man I'm supposed to be with that I did all of this for him, and truly improved myself for him).
In some sense, this is true, if you don't consider yourself of any worth and try to look for it in another person, then obviously you will never find it and you will remain hopeless and waiting for the next distraction. But I'm not saying to remain insecure and find your worth in someone else, nor am I saying be independent and find that you have all you need by yourself. Instead, I think to really, truly love someone you don't look at yourself at all, rather you look at God, and that He can, and does fulfill every part of you that you'll ever need, so everything else is a gift.
before, everything else was still a gift to me in the mindset of being independent, I relied on God for everything I need and everything else I received as a portion of grace, in actuality I think what I was doing was relying solely on myself for everything I need and developing requirements for those portions of grace based on what I felt I deserved. God was no longer something I needed.
This is so easy what that phrase "I need to love myself" can turn into so fast. Do we realize that we expect the same out of people that we don't give ourselves? 9 times out of ten, I'll hear someone say "I just wish he/she did this more" when they themselves haven't done it once, If I was in a relationship I'm sure I would do the same.
In the bigger picture, I think we find weakness in others from that which we see as advancements in ourselves. If we think we're strong and independent, its easy to spot out those who are co-dependent and frail, if we have patient attributes, we see impatience so easily in others. In truth, we're administering those weaknesses we think we don't have by pointing them out.
What i'm trying to say I guess is, we're never going to love ourselves enough, and if we do, we love ourselves too much and need to hold off. The more we love ourselves, the less we look at God, the more we can distinguish our qualities, the less likely we wil refer to them as God's glory shining through us, being the sole provider for why those qualities even exist. And the more we focus on ourselves, simply, the less we focus on others. When this happens, we will never be satisfied with what one can give us and we'll always be looking for them to do more and more. We'll never think that someone can love us fully because we love ourselves so much that no one can ever prove to us the love we have set aside as sacred for ourselves. When you spend so much time thinking of your capacity for love, no one. No one will ever be able to meet it, and the more they try, the more you are disappointed. Nothing will be taken as an act of pure unconditional love because love is a point that gets acrossed and nothing merciful, love is treated as an exchange principle, you give me some, I'll give you some, but those two lines are conditional upon each other.
If everyone were to find their hope, their need, their ability to sin, their weakness, their hatred of being proven wrong, their reverence, their gratitude, their seething through getting over things so they can move on to the next level through God, they would find that only He is able to help and guide and nourish and offer the medicine for curing the things we simply can't do on our own but try so hard and convince ourselves its working. It's not. We don't have to love ourselves first. We have to love God first. It says In the beginning, GOD. Not in the beginning, I.
I am just ready to actually start caring for people. In spite of that I've wasted so much time thinking I'd care for them more if I cared for myself. If I have love granted to me by the giver and maker of love, I think I'll be able to care just fine inspite of the self that tries to be an in-between.
