Love thy neighbor as thyself.

Self-explanatory, right?

Even if you aren’t Christian or religious, this idea is something you have probably heard often. Treat people the way you want to be treated, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc, etc, etc. It’s something we teach our children. It’s something, whether we notice or not, that we are doing or not doing every single day.

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

If you are Christian, you know it’s the second great commandment.

Hidden within this commandment, within all those platitudes, is an even greater mercy: love thyself.

Love your neighbor as you already love yourself. In that commandment is the assumption that you treat yourself well, that you are precious, that you love yourself.

Well, do you?

Reverse all of them and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Love thyself as you love your neighbor. Treat yourself the way you want to treat other people. Do unto yourself as they would have you do unto them.

We cannot complete the exchange of love without loving ourselves. And we are commanded to love others so one of the steps of following that commandment must be to love ourselves. How do we follow it? Well one way is by following the first great commandment: Love god. 

You would think that the nearer you draw to God, you would more perfectly see your own unworthiness. Perhaps that’s true. But just beyond that hurdle, is accessing the perfect love God has for us. Seeing who we truly are, who He would have us become. Any time that I have risked getting closer to His light, I have not been cast in his great shadow. I have only ever felt the warmth.

Happy Sunday, everybody.

xo

eb