Love Each Other - Lent 2020
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.
Mark 12:30-31
Self-care is a trend in today’s culture. e see photos on Instagram and Facebook of selfies, fashion, spa days, and “me time”. Self-love has become a big thing in our culture and as Christians, we seem to see this trend as a bad thing.
Mark 12:31 says: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Did you catch that? As yourself, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus wants us to love and value ourselves as His beloved children. We want our little girls to grow up knowing their worth, but we see teaching them self-love as a bad thing.
At Haskell Indian Nations University, we see over 900 students and most of them walk around with their heads down, looking at the ground. Some say that is a form of respect, but if you look deeper, we have found it is a protective mechanism. This is a picture of how they feel about themselves - unworthy.
How are they to love God if they cannot even love themselves? How do we expect them to come to know a Savior who loves them, created them in His image, and sees them as His special children when they do not see themselves as any of those things? We can’t!
My focus this year is with the freshman girls, helping teach and encourage them in learning to love themselves as children of God. There are over 100 of them, and I have been given the opportunity to host self-care events and small groups in the dorms.
I am not going to them and lecturing about how loving themselves means they must not drink, not have sex, and must read their Bible daily. I am not there to judge them. I am using this opportunity to be honest with them, to speak the truth in love. I am there to love them as Jesus loves them. I am sharing the heart of Jesus and confirming His love for them through lessons on self-care and the importance of sisterhood. In it all, I ask Jesus to speak through me to help right the wrongs that led them to feel unworthy.
Father, I ask that you prepare the hearts of these young ladies to see themselves as you see them. I ask that you show them their worth and your love. Amen.