Love, Honor and Respect

I received an email today, and this paragraph (offset in brown text instead of black text to set apart from mine) sent my mind spinning…(I know it doesn’t take much right now! Hey, there was a funny – yes the laughter is still buried in there somewhere)

It feels selfish, egotistical to “love” ourselves, but instead of being egotistical, it is absolutely essential. Remember, the Bible says to Love others as you love yourself. I began on the journey of loving and respecting myself, (I actually thought I already did) I knew I loved my kids, so for someone to say, “You can’t love someone else unless you love yourself” made no sense to me! But what I found was that once I began to truly love, honor and respect myself, I then could love my children more completely. I loved them from strength rather than from need.

Brent and I have been blessed in the last few years with the gift of being introduced to the series “Love and Respect” (many of you may be familiar with it. When the CD version was first given to us to listen to it was first difficult for me to receive as I thought it was just one more way of being told I had no respect for my husband. But what I have now been able to verbalize after a lot of healing is that no one ever taught me what that means. Now as I’m reading the statement above I’m contemplating the thought that while I have always known there has never been any love for myself have I ever known how to respect or honor myself? What does that mean?

Those who have known me for years know I was not taught to respect and honor my mother and at 39 I am still learning and regretting years of that pain. Then about a month ago I sat at my table and cried with a friend as we discussed the thought that the God tells us to honor our mother and father in the Bible with no conditions. He doesn’t tell you to honor them if they meet up to your expectations or their sins aren’t bigger than yours….God I don’t understand you want me to unconditionally love my parents and honor them and respect them and at this point I was going to say who taught me to do this? Oh God help me my unbelief! When I’m just to weak to look up to you and I just don’t get that you were there all along! Forgive me and pick me up. Thank you that you are unconditional!