Welcome, 2015

Welcome, 2015.

Welcome a new year. A clean slate. A fresh start.

A chance to do better at everything. At loving myself.

I'm welcoming in more thoughts and actions concerning things that are important to me.

I've been a wife and mom for nearly 30 years (yikes! I'm old) and I'm just now recognizing how important it really, really is to feed my passions and nurture myself. How good it is for me, yes, but how much better a wife and mom I can be when I do that! It seems foreign and counter-productive to me. This focusing on me, to help others, but that's how it works.

Once again I am reminded of Jesus' words -- 

37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matt. 22:37-39)

If I'm not loving me, I can't be loving others. And that is what I'm called to do.

So, welcome, 2015. A new year of learning to love myself because Jesus said so.

Blessings.

linking up with Five Minute Friday

A Dare to Love Yourself

I look around my home. I see so many things I haven't done. Haven't taken care of. Dusting and vacuuming left undone. Painting and ironing. Floors to be scrubbed, and bathrooms to be cleaned.

Does it make me unlovable that my home is not immaculate?

I think about the dinner I just cooked for some grad students. Chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus, butter muffins, and chocolate bundt cake. But I didn't put on pretty clothes or lipstick before they came. I was still dressed in my yoga clothes from this morning.

Does it make me unlovable that I'm not Martha Stewart?

I fill out my daily schedule. I look at the things that get done most days. Devotional time, memory work, blogging, feeding my family, washing their clothes. And then I look at all the other things on the list that don't get done, because something else came up, or I just ran out of steam. 

Does it make me unlovable because my list is never completed?

And of course, the answer to all of those is "No". Yet I have to pose the questions regularly to help me stay focused on God's love for me pouring over me, immersing me so that I can love myself. The way He loves me.

I kneel down and say a prayer for me, because it's not enough to just pray for others, and there is nothing selfish in asking for His help for me too. 

Does it make me unlovable that I have to keep asking the same questions over and over again?

linking up with a dare to love yourself

Approving of Myself

So it's been a rough week. A flashback that led to a hard therapy session, that led to another flashback, that led to lots of memory pain and assorted issues that stem from the abuse. 

And now it's Monday morning, and emily is exhorting me to Dare to Love Yourself. I do love myself, don't I? I just have trouble approving of myself. Not judging myself. Not criticizing myself.

I know the abuse wasn't my fault. I know it as well as I can at this point. But there is that little voice in my head that says, each time something new comes up or something old comes around again, "You're just an attention whore. You just want to be the center of the universe and have everyone's undivided attention."

I stop and have that conversation with myself, again, about why would I make up stories? What's the point to it? What's the benefit to me of being in such pain that I spend a day curled up in bed trying to ward off the memory of pain inflicted on my body 45 years ago? Why can't I just let it go and move on? 

I asked my husband how I can be who I am today -- a college graduate with a Master's degree, the mother of 2 children, a wife, a cook, a homemaker, a friend, a writer(?), an encourager -- when all those awful things happened to me, and they keep floating around in my head hindering what I want to be doing? Doesn't my ability to function negate the likelihood that all those awful things really happened? And he put it in perspective for me, again. My assumption is anyone who is functional has never suffered. He reminds me that everyone has trouble and struggles. That we are all trudging along doing the best we can with whatever baggage we carry. And it helps all of us to help each other carry those loads.

So, do I love myself? Yes, but I need to work on it. I need to learn to love me as much as I love you. And while I'm at it, I need to cut everybody a little slack for bad days.

Peace.

linking up with a love dare