God's Beloved by Melissa Bryson Dowling
“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39)
When Jesus is asked to name the greatest commandment, He answers with clarity: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” And then, unprompted, He adds the second: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Many of us learned early how to love others. How to show up, how to serve, how to give. These are all good things. Some of us took this to mean that loving ourselves was prideful, selfish, or indulgent. We learned to diminish our needs, silence our pain, decline offers of help. We learned to pour out from empty cups and to believe that was what God intended.
But Jesus’ words don’t support that belief. He says, “as yourself”. Not instead of yourself. Not at the cost of yourself.
To love yourself is not to place yourself above others; it is to acknowledge that you, too, are God’s beloved. The same God who formed galaxies also breathed life into you. The same Christ who came to redeem the world came also for you. Worthy of care. Worthy of gentleness. Worthy of rest.
This Advent, as we wait for Christ’s arrival, perhaps the weary world rejoices not only in a Savior who loves us, but in the invitation to finally love ourselves as He does: with patience, with compassion, and with delight.
May we practice love that does not exclude us.
May we receive the grace we so freely give.
May we remember we are beloved, too.