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It’s mid-January, 2012, and in honor of our rapidly approaching Valentine’s Day, I invite you to join us in making the great and life-changing decision to love yourself—to let go all the old ideas you’ve accepted about yourself—along with the old year—and decide to love you.
When Jesus was asked: “Master, 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 great commandment. And the second is like it; love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Jesus knew that we will always love God and our neighbor in exactly the same way that we love—or do not love—ourselves. If we are critical of ourselves, we will be critical of others. If we cannot be kind to ourselves, it will be difficult to be kind to others. If we cannot forgive ourselves, we will hold on to resentments and grudges. And it is because we have not yet accepted the deeper Self that we are – the One – the Essence of ourselves – the Self that Is, whose worth is not even dependent on our own thoughts and opinions. You are, and always will be, beloved of the Universe, because you are the Universe in expression. All that is necessary for us to love ourselves is to accept this. It is our decision.
Jane Goodall, in her spiritual autobiography, Reason for Hope, wondered how she could love herself when she failed so often to live up to the standards that she set. As she reflected on this, a new insight came to her about loving the Self that she was. “Only that which is loved can grow,” she wrote. “And only then can we reach beyond the narrow prison of our own lives in reunion with the Spiritual Power that we call God, Allah, the Creator, or whatever our personal belief prescribes.”
Once we make this decision to love ourselves, we begin to grow in Love for God and others.To have Self-love is to have reverence, acceptance, and compassion for the self that you are. In knowing this, our Self-love expands to have reverence, acceptance, and compassion for other selves. Self-love does not depend on what we’ve achieved, what people think of us, how much money we have in the bank, or our changing standards of what it means to be good enough. All that is necessary is that we decide to accept and honor ourselves.
Buddha said, “You can travel around the world to search for someone more lovable than yourself, and yet that person is never to be found.”
This Valentine’s Day, I invite you to join us in consciously making the decision to love yourself, perhaps for the first time in your life. Love yourself and you will be loving God. Love yourself and you will grow in love for others. Love yourself and Love will open new opportunities for love in every area of your life.
Happy Valentine’s Day with Much Love,
Rev. Nancy
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