In the moments when I feel less than lovable, unworthy, out of place, overlooked, misunderstood, mistreated and question once again, “Is this as good as life gets? Is this all I’ll ever be worth?” the Lord has a way of placing the right people in my life.
On a night that would turn into the greatest heartbreak I have ever experienced, the Lord spoke to me in the silence… I had been asking Him for so long to reveal to me His purpose for my life; His plan, my calling. It took the silence of the night for Him to have enough of my attention; for Him to be able to speak and for me to listen…
He carried my thoughts. He reminded me of something a friend said earlier in the day –
“Your calling does not change, your assignment does…”
He said to me,
“Kelsey, your calling has not changed. You feel so deeply, because that’s the way I created you. You see so much, because I allow you to see. I need you to see. You feel their pain because I feel yours. You, my child, are called to love.”
Last year I began praying, asking the Lord to reveal His plan for my life.
He did.
He very vividly told me, “Love.”
One word.
It seemed so simplistic.
I heard the word so clearly I thought I may have been going a little crazy.
I began to ask God “What does that mean? Love? What am I supposed to do?”
Then I began to truly understand what He meant.
“Love. Love others as if it were Me standing there in front of them, not you. Do not love them in the manner which is convenient for you, but in the manner which they need to be loved in their situation, in that moment, in whatever they’re going through. Love them how I would love them.”
Wow, love. What a hefty calling to have laid upon my life.
My purpose, His plan for me is to love others.
But loving others is the one thing I don’t do well.
In fact, it’s the one thing I’m really good at running away from.
The one thing I’m really good at denying; denying myself and denying others.
Last October, the Lord began to teach me the way in which He sees me. You see, we cannot love others the way He loves, unless we understand the power of the Lord’s love; how much He loves us. Over the course of the past year and a half the Lord has been teaching me how to love myself for who the He created me to be and it has been a wretched and painful journey. Many hours were spent in prayer, tears, internally processing and in retrospection. Many months were spent learning how to accept a compliment. Literally, how to say “Thank you,” instead of making a smart remark in return. Following the ability to say thank you, many months are still being spent learning how to believe the compliments. Learning how to believe that people are being honest, not conniving. Learning to believe the Lord made me in His image. Learning to believe that I am not jacked up from the ground up, but I am good because I am His creation and others see that in me.
While teaching me I am loved, the Lord also walked me through learning what it is like to love as He loves – selflessly, unconditionally, without expecting anything in return, even when it pains your heart, always for the benefit of others. He taught me about 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. He taught me how to turn to Him to draw strength. He taught me how and gave me the ability to “comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort which I myself am comforted by Him.” He walked with me though 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, more than once. He desired for me to understand His love. He wanted me to know, “love comes from God,” “God is love,” “and so, we know and rely on the love God has for us.”
Somewhere along the way, I started to feel the weight of the world again. But what I didn’t realize was, it was not the weight of the world, it was my lack of obedience. I had become so task oriented, so focused on loving others, that I didn’t listen when the Lord told me I had completed what the He had asked me to do.
I loved.
I loved with a selfless love.
I loved unconditionally.
I loved without expecting, and most of the time without getting, anything in return.
I loved even when it ripped my heart to shreds.
I loved even when I knew I would draw no benefit from giving all of my heart.
I had done exactly what the Lord wanted me to do, but to me the job was not done.
It was not perfect. (There’s that perfectionism thing again lol.)
The Lord spoke, and I did not listen.
In the end, my lack of listening resulted in causing myself suffering.
If I would have listened I would have heard,
“Well done my child, you are done. You have loved as I asked you to love. But the love you gave, though it was the greatest love you have ever given, is not the most you are capable of. You, my daughter, have been given many good gifts in this life and, while you are on the Race, I want you to keep focused on what I have given you for the moment – time with Me.”
“Let not your eyes be fixed on anyone else but Me. I don’t want you to think I am punishing you, but rather, I am asking you to come closer to Me and see things as I see you.”
“See through the lens of love.”
“See yourself with love.”
You see, we cannot love others the way He loves, unless we understand the power of the Lord’s love; how much He loves us. If I would have listened the first time, or even the first few times, I would have heard the change in my assignment. I would have heard Him tell me,
“Your assignment is to learn how to love yourself as I love you.”
Love yourself.
It sounds simple, right?
I mean, honestly I’m the closest human to myself that I know.
I know me inside and out.
Every thought, every emotion, every memory, I’ve shared them all with me.
But that’s just the thing, I know EVERYTHING about me…The bad, the ugly, the terrible, the worst parts of who I am. And that, that makes it really hard for me to love me.
Not only does what I know about myself make it difficult for me to love me, but what I’ve been conditioned to believe over the years makes it difficult for me to love me. Hearing the words over and over, “You’re not good enough, you’ll never be good enough,” “No one will ever love you,” “You’re worthless,” “You’re ugly,” “You’re heartless,” “You’re expendable,” “You’re always in the way,” “You can never do anything right.” After hearing those long enough, after hearing them over and over for 25 years it becomes really easy to believe them. Really easy to begin identifying myself as those things. And once I began believing them, once I began identifying myself as them, that’s when I began building the wall which keeps me from loving me. Little by little, bricks began being laid and the more I believed each lie, the more bricks were put on top of the wall.
Once the wall was built high enough it became really simple for me to throw emotions behind it; to “compartmentalize” them. Really, just to ignore them or go numb. Out of sight, out of mind…right? If they were behind the wall I couldn’t see them so I didn’t have to deal with them. And so there they sat, all of the emotions I never processed or dealt with, until last October… But God was gentle, He did not breakdown the wall all at once. Brick by brick He began to take the wall down.
As each brick disappeared, a new emotion appeared. Often I did not understand what I was feeling, why I was feeling that way or what the cause of what I was feeling was. But how could I? They were emotions from so far back that I no longer remembered the cause, I simply felt the lingering emotion. I thought what I went through last year was difficult, but I had never felt so close to the Lord. The countless nights I spent crying in His arms seemed like they would never end, and then all the sudden they did. I looked back one day and realized I had not cried in quite some time. Little did I know, the Lord had begun to work on teaching me how to love myself in a different way.
When I built the wall, as I threw my emotions behind it and did not deal with them a residual effect began festering… The devils grip, the foothold he had on my life, grew stronger and stronger. So strong, it became numb and eventually I forgot it was there. It felt normal. It felt like that’s how life was supposed to be lived. I was so confused emotionally when the Lord began taking the bricks down because the new things I felt, felt right…but what felt normal had become my comfort zone, the numbness had become comfortable. Little did I know that my perception of normal was extremely distorted.
As each brick was taken off the devil began to play the hand of cards he had been hiding, waiting to play at just the right moment. Simultaneously, the Lord began to work on teaching me how to love myself in a new way and the devil began to draw out the residual effects I had allowed to fester for all those years. With each brick that came down not only did a new positive emotion appear, but a new negative emotion would pop its head out from time to time. I would begin to trust people, to open up and concurrently I would shut down, not wanting to share or communicate an ounce of my thoughts. I would begin to love people, freely giving and freely receiving love, and simultaneously anger would make a grand appearance.
You see, the Bible dedicates entire sections to love because it is THAT IMPORTANT. And because it is that important, Satan will do everything possible to keep us from getting to a place of freedom where we are able to live out love the way the Lord calls us to. I may have been made for the purpose of loving others in whatever they are going through, but every single one of us as a son or daughter of God is called to love. As it so clearly states in Galatians 5, “The entire law is summed in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
