My first relationship after my divorce taught me a lot. The two most important lessons it taught me were
1) Do not date another man with the same name or same birth month. I say this because both were the same as my ex husband.
and
2) I needed to love myself first before I could ever love anyone else.
Okay, so maybe the first wasn’t really a lesson, but the second was one of the most important pieces to my broken puzzle.
What My Relationship Taught Me
I always thought that I didn’t need to love myself. My priority was loving others even when I didn’t love myself. Then, I met my boyfriend. He told me that I couldn’t love anyone else the way I should without loving myself. I blew him off and told him how untrue that was. I completely loved my children and family or so I thought.
It wasn’t until a year after we broke up when I realized what was stopping me from loving myself. I honestly couldn’t see it at the time, but I hadn’t been happy with myself and my decisions for a long time. I was hurting. The pain from the divorce and guilt from the divorce had me upset with myself. I kept thinking about my children and how I let them down. I didn’t think God would ever forgive me for letting Him down either. My anger wasn’t just towards myself, but often times, I found myself upset at my children for no reason. They were just being children and I couldn’t handle it. I was angry.
I found myself listening to lies that Satan was telling me. I believed that I was not worthy of real love and that God wouldn’t forgive me. Those lies kept me from letting go of all that kept me trapped. My self destruction was getting out of control. I was hurting so much that one evening I lost it. I broke down in front of my two children in our apartment hallways and wept. I couldn’t handle the pain, the weight of guilt, and the stress of everything. Honestly, that night, I didn’t know if I wanted to live. I questioned my place and my reason for being on this earth.
However, it took me realizing, after some time, that God didn’t want me in a marriage like that. He wanted me to find someone who was committed to the marriage and to us. He didn’t want me living a life where I hated myself for what happened. I no longer needed to carry that weight of guilt. It was time to let go of the extra baggage and start loving myself. All I had to do was ask God for forgiveness and he would wash away my sins. He would make me pure again.
Oxygen Mask=Loving Yourself
Loving myself before others is much like giving yourself the oxygen mask first while the plane’s cabin loses pressure before taking care of someone else. I can’t take care of them properly without me taking care of myself first and foremost. When you love yourself, you have accepted who you are. You have accepted who God made you to be.
Think about this, if you don’t love yourself, you aren’t loving who God created. You are perfect to Him so if you don’t love yourself, you aren’t loving what He created. God doesn’t make mistakes. If your child doesn’t love themselves, it hurts us as their mom. They are apart of us and when they hurt, we hurt. I think about our Heavenly Father and how he must feel if we don’t have that self love. Even scripture says in Mark 12:31, “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” How can you love your neighbor as yourself if you don’t even love yourself?
God wants you to love yourself. He wants you to know that you can cast all of your fears, repent of your sins, and live free from the guilt. In 1 John 1:19, “we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Nothing too great, too bad is too much for our Heavenly Father. We can live our lives abundantly if we turn to Him and remember His promises. Rebuke the enemy and all the lies that we hear. We should not be living in shackles of guilt and self hate anymore.
Finding Love When I Loved Myself
Once we find true self love, we can then begin to love others deeply. We can give our whole heart to our children and our husbands, as well. It has been an amazing journey for myself to finally find that true love within. I was able to finally find the one who I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. My dating journey was a self destructive one because of the lies I told myself. Once I got rid of those lies, repented, and began to love myself, I was able to start searching for someone who would be right for me, who would love me, and who God put in my path.
Self Reflection
I ask you to look at yourself and all areas of your life. Can you honestly say you love yourself? What areas do you think you still are trying to love? Is the enemy telling you lies that you are believing? You are a child of God. That is who you are and don’t forget that. That alone should help you remember you are worthy enough to be loved especially by yourself. Nobody is perfect. How boring would it be to be perfect. Starting today, remind yourself of who you belong to and that you deserve happiness and love.
