I worked with a project in Laos for several years that was helping women restore their lives after working in the sex industry. I often minimized my own problems. These women had been raped, sold into the sex industry at young ages by parents, tricked by friends, and basically were left feeling that their worth was zero. All they had to offer was sex to ungrateful men, one after another. I am sure they never felt loved, never felt thanked, never felt worthy. But I found that I really had very little to offer them. What they needed was love. But my own feelings of worthlessness and insecurity kept me from really being able to love them. I knew the Bible, knew in my head that God loves me and loves them, but experientially my sense of love and worth were low. And when your own love bank is running on low, there's really not a lot left to give to others. Sometimes I would even feel jealous of these women. It was easy to feel like they deserved to hear about God's love over and over again, but I should already have gotten it by now. I mean--they had had far worse experiences than me in their lives. So why couldn't I just shake that feeling off of "but I need to feel loved. What about me?" Eventually, I did burn out, and due to health reasons and a general feeling of resentment, I could not continue to help these women. It had taken its toll on me and my family.
Fast forward to nearly two years later, and I feel like the anxiety crisis I have been through these last six months has brought me to a low point. A place of darkness and desperation. It has been a place where I found myself wondering how I could keep going forward. I've actually thought a lot about these women in Laos during the past six months. And today it occurred to me...we all need love notes to ourselves. I have been writing myself love notes these past six months. Writing them all over my journal, and then in the past week I started writing little notes of love and care on 3x5 index cards to carry around, place by my bed, etc. And I get them out and read them. They say things like "hope", "be kind to yourself", "let go", "rest", "you are not alone", "you don't have to carry this by yourself", "you are going to get better", "grace" and so on. One of the ones that has really stood out the most is "be kind to yourself". And it hit me, that if I can be kind to myself, how much kinder will I be towards others? THAT'S IT! The message of the gospel. Love others as you love yourself. And so I am realizing that God loves me so much that he wants me to really know how loved I am. That he would allow me to have a crisis and experience darkness and desperation--to come to the bottom of myself, so that I could begin to hear him say "I love you." But it's taking lots of time. It hasn't been enough to hear it once or twice. I've had to hear it said over and over again, every single day for the last six months. To hear Pete tell me "you are going to get better. I believe in you!" and to hear my counselor and others say "there is hope! I believe it for you!"
Now I feel like I am starting to slowly get it...that if I want to be able to minister to others it has to come from a place of having received it myself. How can I really give anything to others that I don't even have myself? If it's just head knowledge, then I'm just speaking words. (If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.) But when it becomes something I've experienced, then I truly have something to offer others. And when I reflect on how long it is taking me to heal, how long it is taking me to "get it", I realize that the same amount of time and patience and compassion is what others need in their own healing journeys. To hear it or experience it only once (or even twice) is not enough.
And so, I invite you to give yourself love letters. If you don't feel loved, and yet you know with your head that you ought to feel loved...maybe you need to hear "be kind to yourself". Or maybe you need to hear "it's okay, you can step out of all the giving of yourself and take time to receive my love today". It's okay to recognize your own need for love, rest, kindness, patience, self-care. When we listen to our needs, when we care for ourselves, it is not being selfish. As we honor ourselves and listen to our needs, we will find that we have so much more to offer others. And how can that be selfish?
Love yourself today...and tomorrow...and the next day.
