be-musings

Wilsonian wrote: I thought that I was the only one battling fear and self-loathing. Thought I was the only one struggling under the knowledge that God was whispering to me that He loves me and thinks me to be beautiful... and I've found countless ways to express to him that I think Him to be a liar. What a blood waste of creativty! Read it here .

Many of us are processing and struggling through the problem of self-love and self-acceptance. Seeing ourselves for the incredible creation God has made. He doesn't make junk. We've heard that before. We've heard God loves us. But until someone grapples with us, doesn't back down, and shows us it's hard to believe. And we become skilled at bypassing even those people. At making things seem smaller than they really are because it hurts too much to believe that we are valuable. That we are loved. It breaks down our coping mechanisms. How can we trust? How can we believe? Someone will always trash us. Will always break our trust. Will always leave us. Will always...... And we guard our heart. And it becomes tiny and we put it in a box. Never to feel love or give love in the magnitude that we know is within us. That we know is dying to be given.
Or then we suddenly become capable of giving it, but not of receiving. Doing for someone else becomes easier than having someone do for us. Because one day they may..........
I've thought it more important to build up someone's self-esteem and sense of value than to receive it. I've been willing to serve in order to nurture and heal another person. Just to be part of their lives in that way had to be enough. I could say I loved them deeply. And I could hear it said back to me. But then I realized that I couldn't really HEAR it said. I could acknowledge but not live. I could initiate but not take the affirmation. I could not accept my own self as worthy of that love. How are you doing in that area? We are unlovely creatures, or so events in our lives seem to teach us. We grab onto the disappointments. And I don't just mean being disappointed by others. I mean our disappointments in ourselves.
I told a dear friend recently that I don't need to know if they are disappointed in me. That I alone am beyond capable to be disappointed in myself. To find myself unlovely. To recall all my problems, insecurities, mistakes, indiscretions. You know what I'm saying? You're there too.

I don't where this is going next for me...for all of us. I'm don't want to live in the dung. I never knew I even was until this last couple of weeks. Especially this week. I don't know what is going to happen next in this journey. You don't know what's going to happen next in yours. Maybe today you'll cry. Maybe you'll realize that you're beautiful, though your first impulse will be to deny it and review the reasons for your unworthiness. Maybe you'll open the box for a moment and then lock it tight. Please don't. Don't lie to yourself and say that living this will protect you. It will perpetuate your pain for years. It will mask in numbness, until it resurfaces again, bearing its teeth. And you may be successful in setting it aside again next time. But each time you lose a piece of yourself. Of the child God has made. The good, healthy child. The one who wants to live and love with abandon.
Stop guarding your heart. You're squeezing the life out of it. Open your grasp. Let it go.