Love Thy Neighbor

 

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31

 

Loving thy neighbor is the easy part of this verse...it's the loving thy self that I struggle with. I have always had rather low self esteem, I hate what I see in the mirror each morning...I hate my stretch marks, my saggy skin, the bags under my eyes. If asked what I love about myself...well, I would have to say that I love my family, and sometimes my hair. We live in a society that says if you are a size 12 you are "plus size", a society that considers someone at my current weight being "morbidly obese" . I find myself comparing what I look like to other women around me, ashamed to stand next to someone who is thinner than I am. I am vain, but in a different way, thinking that everyone I talk to or see in a public place is looking at me, judging me....thinking to themselves, "Man, she doesn't need to be wearing that!"  

 

I have an amazing, encouraging husband, he thinks I am beautiful and I will go as far as thinking I am sexy...but when he compliments me my first response is something negative. "You look very pretty today!" "Sure I do honey, you have to say that, you're my husband and you're stuck with me." is usually my reply. I know that wears him out, I know he thinks I am beautiful, I know he means everything that he says to me, but if you don't believe it yourself than they can feel like empty words. I need to work on loving myself, because you really can't love your neighbor until you start loving who you are and who God created you to be.

 

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10 

 

Dear Lord, thank you for loving me just the way I am, I know I was created in Your image, the most beautiful image, thank you for your patience with me as I walk down this path of self perseverance.I don't what to define myself by what size I am wearing, or the numbers on the scale, I want to be defined by the good works you created me for. Amen