Just be...LOVED.

The first topic in this series is going to be love.  It is an action which Jesus portrayed daily, whole heartedly and without caution.  It is my thought that it is often easy to love another person, but at times can be quite difficult to love ourselves.  For each thought, I'll share a snippet of a story or experience and how that plays into the daily thought.

I don't ever remember being confident.  Ever.  Not even when I was a child.  I remember the anxiety I felt going to kindergarten.  I remember worrying that no one there would like me.  I remember trying to breathe and pretending that I was happy to be going.  I remember walking in, meeting the teacher, her telling us to go play and being paralyzed by fear.  Paralyzed.  I stood there, watching the other kids play...watching them engage with each other and not being able to move an inch.  When I finally pushed through it, I grabbed a basket of blocks to play with and sat down on the floor by myself.  Then something amazing happened...Another girl came over and asked if she could play with me.  She sat down and we built something together.  I remember feeling a sigh of relief in the fact that this one person had reached out to spend time with me.  I remember being so grateful.  I remember it like it was yesterday some 20 years later.  That girl would become my best friend in life until her family moved away in 7th grade.  The person was one of the only people that made going to the first day of school for the next 6 years seem bearable.  As dramatic as girls can be, we never once fought, we weren't mean to each other and we were always there for each other.  That friend was Jesus in the flesh to me.

Why do we allow ourselves to believe that we are unloveable?  Throughout all 12 years of school, I cried myself to sleep the night before the first day of class each year.  Terrified of what the year would bring, what people would think of me and if I'd be accepted.  I somehow allowed myself to believe that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't worthy of love.

There are a few words for love in Greek.  This situation is an example of phileo.  Strong's Concordance #5368 gives various definitions of this word as:

1. to love
   
   1. to approve of
   2. to like
   3. sanction
   4. to treat affectionately or kindly, to welcome, befriend

Jesus spoke about this love with his disciples.  In John he speaks about loving one another twice within two chapters.  First in John 13:34 and then in John 15:12.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

Jesus had agape love for us, something that I don't believe we are capable of replicating, but we are capable of having phileo love.  This teaching was of such great importance to Jesus and yet in our daily lives it can be overlooked.  I do believe that we must first love ourselves in order to love others well.  And I think that far too often we let ourselves drift into the mindset that we are unworthy of even phileo love.  Read above.  There are no exceptions, no expectations, no conditions on which Jesus loves us or we should love one another.  Read John 15: 9 - 14.  Jesus commands us to love one another and states that we will remain in his love and be his friends if we do as He commands.  And in this, we never have to worry about being unloved.