Love is all you need

There are so many facets to love, and love really is important. One of our deepest human needs is to love and to be loved. If we are fortunate, we start out life in a home where our parents or the people who are raising us know how to show us love and make us feel important and safe. Unfortunately in too many homes, though, that is not the case. How am I supposed to love someone else if I have never felt loved myself? If I don't know what it is like to be loved, what love looks and feels like, I am going to have a difficult time giving love to anyone else because it is not part of my experience.

There is another piece to this puzzle called love, too. I need to love myself before I can love anyone else, not in a narcissistic or unhealthy way, but recognize that I have value and worth and accept myself for who I am. That is sometimes one of the hardest things to do. I mean, I know me; I know where I have messed up royally and failed miserably. I know my motives for doing things, and where I miss the mark of what I would like to be. How can I love me when I know what I am really, truly like? And when I feel like that, how can I let you know me and risk having you reject me?

So love is a complicated, confusing thing. I need to feel that I am loved and I need to love myself before I can love someone else. That's all well and good if I have grown up in a relatively healthy, functional family and have experienced some measure of love. What if that is not the case? How do I get to that place of loving myself enough to be able to potentially love someone else?

Sometimes it seems impossible to get from here to there, from not having experienced love to being able to love myself and others. Love is both a decision and a commitment, that is definitely true, but if I have not felt loved or do not love myself, I am not capable of making a genuine decision or commitment to love someone else. Somehow I have to experience love and love myself before I can make that kind of choice.

That is why Jesus came. He came to show me (and everyone who will accept it) what love is. The "love chapter," I Corinthians 13, describes what his love is like: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (I Corinthians 13:4-6)

Jesus knows me better than I know myself, all the faults and failings and imperfections that leave me wanting to hide from him and from everyone, and yet he loves me. He loves me absolutely and unconditionally. When I did not know him or even care about him, he gave his life for me so that I could know his love and acceptance. The kind of love he gives enables me to love myself and reach out to someone else, and it makes me want to share his love with everyone I know. His love really is all I need.

November 18, 2007