I recently celebrated a birthday. Though not one of the milestone years, I love the sense of a clean slate that a birthday gives us. A new start.
Lately something has been brewing inside of me. I can't figure it out. I can't name it.
I just know that something must change.
I've had to do a lot of work over the last decade and a half. Work on myself. The work that survivors of abuse know. Work that those who need major therapy understand. It's hard work. I don't want to do it most of the time because it is work. It hurts at times, and yet, there are rewards for doing it. I know if I don't do it, the poison inside me will kill me.
Do I sound dramatic? I'm sorry if I do. I just have gotten too old for this stuff. I want it out. I want it gone. Forever. I know that may not be possible, but I have got to make room for the work in my life. How will I do that?
Unplugging.
Minimalism.
Answering the call.
...{not sure, still figuring it all out}...
I do know that over the last several weeks and months, I've gotten a clear message. We must "love our neighbors as ourselves." This isn't new age, mumbo-jumbo. This is wisdom, hidden in one of our most familiar and beloved Christian verses:
Matthew 22: 36-40
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘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.”
The love of God, self, and others. That is the key to life. I need to take some time to do the work of learning to love myself.
I was raised to hate myself. I always felt like I should have never been born, like I was unwanted and unloved. This was through spoken and unspoken messages from my parents. Our Calvinistic doctrine taught us about a monstrous God who was all about justice and wanted to punish us all to death.
To know Christ...the real Christ...is to know Love and to become more loving. To know and love God, who is Love, is to love others and yourself. If I don't love myself in a healthy, balanced way, how can I love God or others? The answer is, I can't. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling the brokenness. And it's time for me to unplug, go minimalist, and do whatever it takes to answer the call to conversion on this matter.
You might not relate to what I describe here, and that's okay. I don't say it out of self-pity or evangelization. I simply say it for myself and for the few others who may have had a similar experience. The relationships we have to God, self, and others are equally important and inter-connected. It's time for me to do some intentional work to heal in these areas, and I'll be pretty silent on the blog for a while. I'm not sure what this is going to look like, except that silence and intentionality will be coming into play quite a lot.
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From one of my favorite Christmas carols, O Holy Night:
...Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new glorious morn...
Do you feel your worth? Do you know how much you are worth? A new, glorious morn...a new way of doing things...a new way of seeing ourselves...a new way of being loved that had never existed before came into being. Love incarnated.
It's time for me and my soul to feel my own worth.
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John 1:14
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
