Healthy People Think About Other People: Day 77; 100 Days to Brave (RESET day 7)

Be Brave: 

Look back at the title of today- Healthy People Think About Other People- 

and it's because they loved themselves first that they are able to love other people. 

Think about this and write about it today: 

Would your life and relationships look different if you lived that truth? 

That to love others is an overflow of God's love to you and your love for yourself? 

(emp mine)

There is some kind of fine line between humility and pride. Even love and hate, I think. Although they seem so contrast, isn't it so that they are but millimeters from one another on a gauge?

I can be humble and think terrible thoughts about myself, but is that humility at all? Don't I first have to know Who I Am to best know Who I Am Not? 

Because it is actually pride, not humility, which looks me in the mirror and speaks death: hatred and abuse. It is pride telling me I am not good enough, attractive enough, skinny enough, smart enough. 

Telling me I am not enough at all. 

The humility is altogether different. When I look into a mirror, I see physical body, but I am entirely aware of the God who created me. What He says about me. Who I Am to Him. 

It doesn't mean I love seeing myself at at times. There are seasons when I most certainly do not. When I look, I see the lack, the dirt, and the cheap grasps for acceptance. 

When my eyes remain on Him, however, I can still look -still possibly cringe, but- there is a difference. 

The pride of "how I should (look/talk/be)" and the hurt of "why me?" are made to humble themselves before the authority of a Holy God and His Word. 

He speaks love over me. 

He sings over me with dancing. 

He created me with detail and He did so deliberately. 

When I know who I am to Him, I can love myself That.Much.More. 

And when I can love myself more, I can love others more. 

You cannot give what you do not have. 

the Spruce

For long seasons of my life, I poured love out onto others and very rarely allowed this love to be poured back into me. I resisted it. I fought it. 

I thought I was so very humble and meek, when the truth was that I was scared and hurt, and this lead me to resist and deny. 

OK, I am SO NOT the poster child for self-love. 

But I get what Annie is sharing. 

I bought the same lie she did, believing that it mattered little-to-none if I loved myself, all the while, my love for others was still present.

So I volunteered and poured out my heart and affections whilst feeling like I was drying up inside from lack of permission to allow the same to be done to and for me. 

And as a result, I left that ministry, where I was in a leadership position, and sought to be in placement under leadership immediately afterwards.

My time there was filled with so many opportunities for refilling my cup, and I shut the door an so very many of them for the sake of pride.

After that ministry, and after my denial by another ministry, where I applied to go for residency, I moved to Germany. This time followed the most Bible-immersed seasons of my life, and it was a harsh reality when I was no longer in my bubble. 

In retrospect, maybe the bubble wasn't protecting me so much from the big-bad world, as it was harboring my ability to remain closed-off. I could front my lack of confidence as humility and people wouldn't know. But being in Germany lead to some depression and bulimia and all kinds of insecurities I hadn't previously dealt with, so eventually I had to leave. For healing. 

It comes really naturally for me to concern myself with others. wanting them to be loved and known. It is much more difficult to receive this affection, attention, and affirmation. 

But I am working on it. 

Because healthy people think about others. 

And healthy people think about themselves. 

"If you're truly being brave and if you're truly pursuing health, 

you grow to love yourself and you love other people out of that." 

(emp mine)

Today feels like a confessional, friend. 

*****

RESET Day 7: yeah...I missed the bar on this one, back it up to Day 3 (wtheck??)
Day 3: How to Plan Your Dream Year.
Yes, please!

So....disclaimer, I totally fudged-up somewhere in this process and posted  resets out of order. Hence Day 7 is actually Day 3. But, no biggie.
Keep Up The Good Work, Ya'll!!