Recklessly loving me

I haven't always liked me.  I have rarely loved me. I didn't think I was worth it. Mostly I believed that I was less important than anyone in my life. I looked in the mirror and saw nothing redeeming looking back. I knew I wasn't the only one who struggled with this self- loathing. After all my friend Abi would preach about self-love all the time and by preach I mean at huge conferences and around the world. She had been like me, looking in the mirror and wanting to change everything about the person looking back. 

At 47, my life seemed to have spiraled out of control. My second marriage was falling apart and honestly I had given up hope for it years ago. I didn't have any fight left in me. I just wanted to be alone and wallow in self-pity about how I had screwed it all up.  But I couldn't.  After all I had the boys to think about. So I asked God for some help.   I needed to learn to at least like me. I asked Him for something to change, for someone to see in me something that was good and for me to see it like they did. Just one thing. I was sure that if I could find one thing to like, I would be able to build on that.  After all, I had tried all sorts of other things to get out of the funk. Meditation, therapy, fitness, and school had all been a bust. I still didn't like me, I couldn't see anything really good in  my life and I was on the verge of deep depression. Sadly, in my mind, I knew I was worthy. I knew I was good in God's eyes.  I knew that I was beautiful.  I just couldn't live in that truth, I couldn't function as if my heart really believed the things my head knew to be true about me.

Then the song happened. Reckless love, was one of those ones that made me cry from start to finish. The lyrics were all about me but that bridge refrain - it cut like a knife to my heart. It goes like this in case you haven't heard the song.

There's no shadow You won't light up

Mountain You won't climb up

Coming after me

There's no wall You won't kick down

Lie you won't tear down

Coming after me.

The song is all about God's reckless love for us.  His ability to pursue us to the end of the earth to show us His truth  If you have read anything I've written on this blog before you would probably think this is a concept I have mastered, after all, I talk about it all the time. But in reality, living in the depths of lies about who I am has been my reality since I was a small girl, baffled by the world that seemed to change in an instant and tell me that I was worth nothing. If you know my story, you know there has been plenty of trauma and abuse. I've worked through so much pain to come to where I am today.  But just recently I realized that the main abuser in my life has been me.  I have left myself victim to the lies, the shadows of doubt, the mountains of pain,  I've built walls to keep myself pinned in and in bondage.  As I stood there that Sunday realizing that God knew all along that I would be my own worst enemy and He was still going to love me recklessly, I realized that more than anything I wanted to be free to love myself the same. I wanted to fight for me, I wanted to fight to like myself maybe even love me. And well that means letting Him break down the walls, tear down the lies, climb the mountains and light my life. 

The road to self-love has been full of choices. Day by day, I have to chose to fight for me. I have to remember that I am worth the life of someone's only son and that I am worth my own love worthy of the love others give me too. Each day I am working to stop hearing the lies that I can't trust anyone including me, that I can't be honest about what I'm feeling, that I'm not enough. Each day I have to chose to believe that joy and happiness are mine to take. It's hard to learn to love yourself, and some days I am far more successful than others. But each day I'm trying. Each day that I decide to allow myself to fight for me, I get better at it. I get stronger. I get to the point that when I look in the mirror I see things that I never noticed before. I see what others have seen, what God intended for me to see all along. 

If you don't love yourself - maybe you need to do what I did - after all I tattooed it on my chest to remind me each day, 

Or maybe you just need to realize you have the ability to chose. Today you can make a choice that says your worth reckless love from God and yourself. I'm worth it - so are you!