God loves me just as I am
So why don't I?
I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low
Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know
You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
And you say I am held when I am falling short
And when I don't belong, oh You say I am Yours
And I believe
Oh, I believe
What You say of me
I believe
The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me
In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity
Why is it so difficult for people, especially women, to love ourselves? Why do we feel that in order to be “good” women, wives, moms, daughters, friends, etc., that we must put everyone else before ourselves?
This is not to say men do not have the same struggles. I simply have first-hand experience being a female, so I can speak confidently from that perspective.
I once read an analogy that went something like this: You know when you are flying on a plane, and the flight attendant tells you before takeoff to secure your own oxygen mask first before helping others?
This is because, if you’re not getting oxygen for yourself, then you will not be conscious to assist anyone else with their mask.
Well, loving yourself has the same outcome. If we don’t love ourselves, how are we supposed to give it to others?
Learning to love ourselves is not always easy, and it’s generally in on-going process, especially if we didn’t grow up being loved as we should have been during our formative years, but it can still be learned. There is hope!
When you look in the mirror, what do you tell yourself?
When someone compliments you, how do you react?
If you were asked to name five things you love about yourself, what would you say?
Can you honestly say you love yourself?
What does it even mean to love yourself?
photo by DANNY G @dannyg
I have always found this to be such a conflicting topic for me as a Christian woman. Conflicting because I feel the church has done a poor job of teaching about self-love, and what it means when we are told, God loves us just as we are.
What exactly does that mean? According to scripture I am made in His image, yet I am a sinner in need of a Savior, but God loves me just as I am?
In the Christian community, everything is always focused on loving others, doing for others, and caring for others. After all, Jesus taught us to love others.
He is all about loving others, but He also uniquely created each of us. Each one of us are crafted from His personal workmanship, and there is no shame in loving the person He made us to be.
I understand that we live in a world hyper-focused on self-love, and not at all focused on loving others or ourselves in the biblical sense. The world’s self-love is not the kind of love I am talking about here.
I want to love myself as Christ’s daughter. I want to see myself as God sees me, a beautiful creation, His child, precious in His sight, wonderfully made, and a work in progress.
So why do I struggle with the concept of self-love and why is there so much shame around this concept?
Today’s writing could go in several different directions regarding the subject of self-love, but for the purpose of this post, I am looking at it from my perspective as a Godly woman.
One who has struggled most of her life to understand what it truly means to love myself, to not feel shame or guilt over doing so, and to fully grasp what self-love looks like.
photo by Cdoncel @cdoncel
The Bible tells us in John 3:16,“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. This scripture tells me, that before I was even born, God loved me. I also know from scripture that God knew me before I was even in my mother’s womb. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” Jeremiah 1:5
“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” ~ Song of Solomon 4:7
It recently hit me, how much it must insult God when I think of myself in a negative manner.
These scriptures support God’s love for me, and you, and that He loved us even before we were. He has gone to great lengths to make it known that we are His creation and that He loves us so much that He gave His son Jesus to die for our sins.
So, what does it mean that God can love me just as I am, and yet I struggle to love myself?
I have found the answer to be two-fold. One part is due to our world’s influence, and the second part is due to our lack of understanding of what it means to love ourselves and that God loves us just as we are.
Let’s first address the influence of our world.
“We live in an era of self-love. We’re encouraged to make ourselves the center of our universe and devote our time, energy, and resources to crafting the perfect version of ourselves.~ Anuji Mahajan, Filmmaker-Mass Communication Specialist
The world’s definition of self-love is mostly toxic. It’s an extreme self-love fueled by complete self-absorption. We are so hyper-focused on ourselves that we fail to notice others’ needs.
The world tells us, you be you, or you do you. This sort of self-love makes us the center of our own universe.
photo by Marija Zaric @simplicity
So, what’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, no one wants to be around someone like that. No one wants to be around someone who only thinks of themselves and only what matters to them.
Think about it, how do you feel when you are with someone and they never ask anything about you or your world? All they talk about is themselves and their world.
“Self-love, self-respect, self-worth: there's a reason they all start with 'self.' You can't find them in anyone else.”~ Anuji Mahajan
There is a dark side to living within the world’s definition of self-love. This form of self-love leads to an idealized version of ourselves and our life that isn’t real, and we end up alone, isolated, and lonely.
I know I do not wish to love myself as the world defines and shapes self-love, that is empty, and an endless struggle of chasing the ever-shifting, always moving bar of “perfection.”
So why then, as a Christian woman, is there this sense of guilt with loving myself? Where does this come from, and how can I change this unhealthy idea of it all?
I truly believe that God’s desire is for us to go through life confident in who we are as He created us to be, not the person social media, Hollywood, or Vogue magazine tells us to be, but who HE created us to be.
God created us in HIS OWN image! WOW! Think about that! It recently hit me how much it must insult God when I think of myself in a negative manner.
God does not want us to go through life filled with self-hate, disappointment, or filled with insecurities about ourselves. He desires for us not to worship ourselves or have a narcissistic behavior, but a healthy self-love.
So, why doesn’t the church ever talk about what that looks like? They teach about the ugly kind of self-love, but in all my years of attending church, I have never heard a sermon on the importance of self-love and what that actually looks like or means.
I have learned and I’m still learning the following about loving myself.
1. In order to love myself, I need to understand God’s truth about me, and not what the world’s mantras tell me I am. I know God doesn’t make mistakes. He chose me and made me who I am. He loves me. I am His daughter and He calls me His own. King David reminds us in Psalm 139:14, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
2. In order to love myself, I must understand that my worth is because of Christ in me, and I need to be confident in that. This means not being arrogant but being humbled in the wonder and awe of this fact. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
3. In order to love myself, I need to remember in Matthew 22:36-40, when asked which is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus said the him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” God told us to love ourselves as we love others. He gave us permission to love ourselves, and gave us the boundaries for that self-love, “as we love others.”
4. I must love myself in order to love others well. If I cannot understand God’s love, His grace, or his forgiveness on me, how can I possibly extend that kind of love to others?
If we seek the self-love this world tells us we need to find we will always be seeking. We will never feel whole or loved and we will be missing what God wants us to have through understanding self-love from His perspective. The kind of self-love God wants for us is that which understands who we are because of Jesus.
photo by Joeyy Lee @joeyy_anne
Remembering who we are and loving ourselves is all about Him. We are who we are because God is good. All we are and who we are is not just for us, but it is all to glorify Him. If we seek our self-love through the lens of who God says we are we will have a healthy understanding of self-love.
Through prayer, maybe counseling if necessary, time in His word, and the continued intentional seeking of truth, we can learn to love ourselves better and better.
If you struggle with loving yourself, know that you are not alone. I believe for many of us it is a process.
Here are some suggestions that might help guide you on your journey to a healthy, Godly self-love.
1. Begin every single day with gratitude for another day of life. Life is a gift!
2. Know who you are in Christ.
3. Look in the mirror and tell yourself you are created in God’s image. God doesn’t make junk!
4. Stop playing the comparison game. Get off of, or minimize time spent on social media.
5. Choose to read God’s truth about you over scrolling through the lies of social media.
6. Speak positive affirmations to yourself.
7. Exercise. Care for your body/temple, your mind, and your soul.
8. Eliminate the negative self-talk.
9. Be intentional about your life. Don’t squander the days/years away.
10. Seek joy, not happiness. Joy is greater than happiness.
Yes, God loves us just like we are, dirty hands, dirty face, dirty soul, and all. He wants us to love ourselves just as we are as well, but He also loves us too much to leave us there, and this plays into the reason it is often difficult for us to love ourselves. I’ll speak to this in my blog for next week.
Part two- God loves me just as I am-So why do I have to change? The misperception of all of this that can trip us all up, and our enemy knows it and uses it.
Suggested Reading:
The Dark Side of Self-Love How Our Obsession with Ourselves is Making Us Lonely
Self Love: The Importance of Learning to Love Yourself.
