the lens of self-love.

"Alexa, play 'Self Love' by Dreamville."

We hear it so often. That self-love is the best love. But what I'm about to say may rock you a little bit.

It's not.

Now this isn't removing its validity. It is highly important to love yourself, but when your view of self has been twisted and turned, when society tells you you ought to love yourself in a certain way, but you don't know how to, it's extremely hard and confusing.

You can't really birth something from nothing. You can't create something that wasn't originally there in the first place. We're not God. 

If we don't know God, we don't know love. God is love. So how are we loving ourselves without the originator of love Himself?

It's impossible.

The world will tell you otherwise. But hear me when I say this (or read me lol), you can't love without Him. Genuinely. 

As human beings, there is a limit--a capacity in which we are able to do something. We're limited in how much we can help others, limited in time, limited in space. This too applies to love.

Can we get a liiiiiiittle personal? I mean, this is the creative safe space :)

Before Christ (B.C.) I had no idea that I, Cindy Donna, was loving myself incorrectly. 

Growing up, I hated myself. In fact, I actually hated everything about myself. I hated my hair, my looks, my height, my speaking/singing voice, my body, my skin tone, my upbringing...

...yeah...the list can go ONNNNN.

But in recent years I developed self-love, or so I thought.

I pampered myself. I always had my hair, makeup, nails, and lashes done. I bought myself whatever I wanted, took myself on solo dates, bought myself roses, did my daily affirmations in the mirror, went to the gym, ate right, dressed nicely-- the whole nine. 

And this isn't wrong. I encourage you to take care of yourself! But this was fleeting.

It never left me satisfied. It gave me the quick boost that I needed to sustain myself, but that was it.

 After a while, your hair follicles grow out, your lashes fall out, and the roses die.

All of these acts were just external ways of trying to heal an internal void.

Was this self-love? or was this self-idolatry?

And we've all been there. We mindlessly and blindly think that this is correct.

The problem is that we looked to ourselves to do the work of self-love without understanding its importance in the first place. and Who it stems from.

Jesus.

He's the originator of everything. But the enemy distorts everything He creates.

There is a prerequisite to truly loving ourselves. It's loving Jesus.

In Mark 12:28-31 (I challenge you to read the whole chapter, it’s honestly quite amazing), Jesus is describing the greatest commandment. That we believers should obey—to love our God with every fiber of our being. the next commandment Jesus tells us is equally as important— to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Our savior calls us to love ourselves. But we can’t do that without understanding God’s love for us. Out of the overflow of love for God, we can love ourselves. Out of the overflow of love for ourselves, we can love others.

My prayer for you is that you will never do anything from a place of lack, but of abundance, This goes for love too.

so what is self-love?

Self-love is taking the carnal lens out of our eyes and viewing ourselves as sons and daughters of the Most High.

Self-love is going out of your way to serve others, even when you don't feel like it

Self-love is spending time in the Word to understand who and Whose you are.

Self-love is not splurging on something and instead paying it forward for the next person.

Self-love is being in the presence of God instead of mindlessly scrolling through our devices.

Self-love is limiting access to people in our lives that simply don't deserve it.

Self-love is not oversharing vulnerable information to those who weren't graced for it.

Self-love is taking care of your body as a temple for the Holy Spirit.

Self-love is being patient with yourself on days you feel like giving up.

And when I finally viewed myself the way God viewed me, it changed everything. I walk differently, I speak differently, I love differently.

going from hating myself to loving myself externally, to loving myself biblically...

it hits different.

and don't get me wrong! I still do everything I listed above but with a purpose. I love with purpose. because I know where I come from. 

So, to conclude,

Self-love is loving Jesus. Period.

so let's change up our playlist just a little bit :)

"Alexa, play 'Royalty', by Tasha Cobbs."

Cindy Donna

"the creative that came from the Creator."