Loving myself

I was just about to go to bed. Then I started to read, and that nervouse excited feeling overwhelmed me. I knew I had to write something down. I don't want to go into too much background detail, however, I need to say some things before I dive right into my plans for my Christmas break.

I have struggled with self-image issues for most of my teen life, and as I grow older, and even just now, I am realizing this could even mean that I don't love myself. That's a pretty big deal, also quite common I think. It's hard to explain the inner workings of my mind. Quite often people tell me that they like me, love me, and even miss me. One might think this would penetrate my bad thoughts, and sometimes I think it does. I "know" God loves me, but how do Iknow this? I sure don't always feel it. These other thoughts then enter my head about being unlovable and I think how on earth could anyone love me? I am such a mess, a screw up! People often say, "those are lies from the pit of HELL Rosie!" I hate it when people say that, true or untrue.

It was just the other day, when talking to my shiny friend, that the thought occurred to me (funny how it took so very long) maybe the one who doesn't love me, is me?

This is all being brought up in me because of the aforementioned book that I am reading, A Tree Full of Angels. I wish I could buy everyone a copy and have you read it. It is one of those books I have trouble reading alone because I want to discuss every sentence with another person. Here are the pieces that got me thinking about all this:

"When you can lovingly be present to yourself, your presence to others takes on a deeper quality also.

There are many ways we are called to come home to ourselves. There is that part of ourselves that feels ugly, deformed, unacceptable. That part, above all, we must learn to cherish, embrace, and call by name.

... This indeed is coming home to yourself, to face yourself and embrace yourself. Invite yourself into your own abandoned house, abandoned only because you are not at home with yourself. Invite yourself in, then. Sit down at table with your estranged self, estranged only because you've forgotten the real unity that exists within you.

... So, invite yourself in! Treat that self like a beloved member of your household. It is a beloved member. It is you! You've come home" (pp. 6 - 7).

So this is part of my journey with my time off; here in Fredericton, I am going to invite myself in, and love me!

[Another part of the book I so enjoy is how she talks about our "littleness and our greatness, our frailty and our splendor, our poverty and our wealth" (p. 2).]

And maybe, just maybe, those "lies from the pit of hell" are partially thoughts and reminders of my littleness, and maybe then I can look to God and see how I am made GREAT, and see how through Jesus, I am being made GLORIOUS.

I am being "divinized", to use Macrina's words.

Here I go.