On purpose or not, February makes us think about love. But how often do you treat yourself as your own valentine and say, “I love me!”
Love can come in all different shapes and sizes. And self-love is like air. It is hard to describe and vital to everyone. Self-love is a state of “appreciation for oneself” and involves “accepting yourself fully, treating yourself with kindness and respect, and nurturing your growth and wellbeing.” (Source 1; Source 2)
While we can give this definition, it’s much harder to live out. Hopefully, I can help remind you about why we should and how we can go about each day saying “I love me” to ourselves.
Not Comparing and Start Acknowledging
There are two big reasons we aren’t waking up saying “I love me” every morning. First, we compare ourselves to others. Second, we don’t acknowledge what we have. The beauty of social media at our fingertips serves as the magnifying glass through which some of us critique our own lives. I use this magnifying glass. Something as little as my friend posting the places she went out to eat makes me feel subpar in comparison because I didn’t try new places as she did. It makes me completely forget that I try to cook new recipes at home. At that moment, not only do I compare the experience of her life to mine, but I completely discount the things I do for my enjoyment.
1 Corinthians 12: 12-23 helps me when I drown myself in the desire of wanting to be everyone else. Each part of our body has a different purpose and look. I have been made perfect for my purpose, and that is not the same as another’s. Therefore, my life will not look like theirs. After removing idealizing others, we must replace it with something else; that is appreciating ourselves. For me, that currently looks like taking pictures of all the foods I make, so when I feel like I never do anything nice for myself, I have physical proof that I do. It reminds me that I love me. I am my own valentine.
Not Perfect but Still Worth It
I will share two more reasons we aren’t professing love for ourselves every chance we get. One, we believe we have to be perfect. And two, we also don’t see our worth. Nobody is perfect. I can say it every day, all day, from now until the end of time, but if I snooze my alarm more than 3 times (which I do way too often) I already feel like I failed at being great today; let alone perfect. And that little feeling will snowball into a bigger feeling the whole day and the next days if I don’t address it.
How can we address this crippling feeling that we aren’t perfect, you wonder? We accept it. 2 Corinthians 12:9 “[God’s] power is made perfect in weakness.” If I was perfect, I would not have God’s power in me because there would be nothing to fix, and I do want God’s power in me. After accepting our weakness, we must also extend grace to ourselves. God’s grace is unending, and he is perfect. If he can give us the space to mess up because he loves us, we should be able to love ourselves enough to do the same. And how do we know we are worth anything to God? John 3:16. Luke 12:7. Luke 15:3-32. These are just a few. If God thinks we are worth it, we can say to ourselves (out loud this time), “I love me.”
Be Your Own Valentine
After reading this, you probably won’t scream “I love me” and mean it. But that’s okay. My goal wasn’t to get you to love yourself by the end of this. It was to get you to realize that you can. Every day is a battle where we have to make choices. Choosing to love ourselves can be just as hard as any other choice. But it will never be the wrong choice. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to pray continually. Prayer means talking to God. Ask him to show you how to love yourself, remind you of your worth, and bring others to your circle to show you why you are so amazing. He won’t care that this is a repeated, never-ending prayer. I actually think he wants us to pray for it, so we truly know our worth from the one who created us and not try to find it in all the other temporary things and people around us.
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