Love Yourself

Loving yourself is not terribly British.  Blowing one's own trumpet or singing one's praises seems unnecessary.

 

We Brits are far more likely to talk ourselves down, to feign 'humility' or 'modesty' by saying that we're not all that good at something actually, or we must have just got lucky.

 

We don't really celebrate ourselves (at least, not out loud for other people to hear us - for fear of seeming arrogant and conceited), and we don't really know how to love ourselves.

 

But until we can love and accept ourselves, we will never be able to truly love others.

 

You can't give something you haven't got.

 

There is an assumption throughout the Bible that we will love ourselves.  And love ourselves well.  In fact, Jesus said that the second most important command was for us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves [Matthew 22:39].

 

Loving ourselves is important.  It is fundamental.  Brene Brown writes,

 

"Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do."

 

And as Carrie Bradshaw says in Sex and the City -

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all, is the one you have with yourself."

 

I love this passage in Ephesians about love -

"Mostly what God does is love you.  Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us.  His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.  Love like that."
 

[Ephesians 5:2 MSG]

We can only love like that - giving everything of ourselves to others without trying to get something back - when we are secure in ourselves and when we have accepted God's love for us and have begun to love ourselves.