Love Me, Love Me Not
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed
I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love and beautiful"
- Beautiful, Bethany Dillon
Living in a Spanish-speaking country, I often notice when someone is wearing a t-shirt with English writing. I've noticed quotes and popular catch-phrases, and one message in particular has caught my attention because I've seen it several times, and because it's been in bold hard-to-miss lettering:
I Love ME
It's a proclamation that appears to be shouted confidently. Confidence is good, right? Aren't therapists and the like always saying that we must accept ourselves for who we are? That we can't truly love someone else until we love ourselves? Even a growing number of modern-day churches are preaching acceptance, as though a hug and a "God loves you" are all anyone needs. That's a need, sure, but what about sharing the truth of a sin nature with which every person is born with? What about repentance and seeking God's cleansing from sins? Wouldn't something about grace be more appropriate to wear as a billboard for all to see?
I feel that each generation has to do deal more and more with the pressures of appearance. Beauty today is sleek and expensive. It is defined by salons, gyms, tanning beds, plastic surgery, and name brands. From a young age, children see beauty portrayed on TV and in magazines - outer, cultivated 'beauty' - over learning the meaning of having a beautiful heart. They quickly see that today's society wants women to look like Barbie dolls and men to look like actors. It's little surprise, then, that people would have deep-seated issues of self-esteem. Questions of, "Am I enough?" plague teenagers and adults everywhere. We try to fit the mold of a plastic prettiness, one that is never enough, because it never lasts. What is on the outside can't satisfy the soul, which longs to be delighted in as it was created.
So in response to those who don't ever feel good enough, our culture tells us to love ourselves and accept all people. It's like the hippie generation all over again, except that this time, free love is a cause to rally around with organized protests and senate debates. It's politically correct to say that gay marriage should be allowed. Celebrities - those who are already admired by millions - join in the debate, but I wonder if the passion for that cause comes from thinking that something needs to be made right or from needing a hot-topic cause to get behind simply for their image? Just as churches are opening their doors with a 'love is all you need' mentality: yes, show love the world round, please!, but don't neglect the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior, a Savior who died for our sins. Rather than sinking to a level of accepting ourselves and others exactly as we are ("half-hearted creatures*) let's love others - and yes, ourselves - enough to delve into God's word and ask for His mercy to transform us.
Love is one of those words which is tossed around until it can hardly hold any true meaning. A sincere confession such as "I love my husband," can follow less important statements such as, "I love ice cream," or, "I love these shoes". So what does it really mean when someone says, "I love me"? Have they meditated to a point where their mind floats in a happy place of acceptance and tranquility? Or is it more of a plea: "I love me? I hope? Maybe ... and if I do, can you love me too?"
What I would love to see is a shirt that continues the proclamation with "because".
"I love me because God loves me and has made me new." "I love me because God created and saved me." "I love me and you because God loves us." Something like that.
I am completely guilty of using the word love flippantly, of settling for a version of myself which is less than what God planned, and of being discontent with how I look and am when compared with what the world claims to desire. My responses, internal and external, will probably always be a work in progress. Yet, I can be "confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). I don't have to embrace myself, except for who I am in Christ. I don't have to have any cause except telling others of the redeeming love of God. He loves us a million times more than we can ever love ourselves. That's the love we can embrace, a love to write on our arms or carry on our sleeves or print on our t-shirts. "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:15).
Love: the breathtakingly beautiful Biblical definition. As my pastor says, "God gives to us so He can give through us."
Let Him give love to us so He can give love through us.
*“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not
too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about
with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an
ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he
cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We
are far too easily pleased.” - C.S. Lewis
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