Lesson 10: You can truly love others only after you've learned to love yourself

WOW, so I looked back at this old blog that a bunch of people in my class use to write in and I found some AMAZING stuff.

Here's an excert from a post from my friend slyvia:

From the sermon "Life and Love" by Kris Vallotton.

"Every time someone loves you more than you love you, you will sabotage your relationship with them."

"You sabotage relationships with people you really value ... Everybody whom I wanted to like me, like I had a high value for them, I would be afraid that if they got to know me, they wouldn't like me, so I would build a case against them before they had a chance to build a case against me, so I could reject them before they had a chance to reject me ... The problem is you don't love yourself."

"Do you understand that Jesus said, 'Love your neighbor AS you love yourself'?"

"I can't love you more than I love me. You say, 'Well, yes, I can.' No, you can't. Jesus said, 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' I can't give you what I don't have. If I possess it in this temple, it works on me before it ever works on you."

"People like us that have these struggles, we're really good givers. But what can't we do? Receive. Why? Because receiving means that I will have to let you give to someone who doesn't deserve. And what happens when someone who doesn't deserve it gets stuff? Then they begin to self destruct, because then you just gave a guilty party something they shouldn't have."

Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz writes "And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it. I think apart from the idea that I am a sinner and God forgives me, this is the greatest lesson I have ever learned. When you get it, it changes you. My friend Julie from Seattle told me that the main prayer she prays for her husband is that he will be able to receive love. And this is the prayer I pray for all my friends because it is the key to happiness. God's love will never change us if we don't accept."

About a 2 years ago, I thought I loved myself, but since then, I realize that I have a long way to go to truly loving myself and learning the greatest lesson that God forgives me. I can't wait for that to change me and for me to find happiness through it.