Blue Like Jazz, once more.

"God's love will never change us if we don't accept it."

Chapter 19 of Blue Like Jazz was powerful to me. Through Donald Miller, it addressed some stuff I've been going through. Only I read it before I went through the stuff; it only hit me later.

I don't always love myself. I often beat myself up becasue I'm feeling like crap and I don't understand why and I think it's my fault I'm feeling so horrible. So I bang myself around and I'm so concerned with being un-loving towards myself that I am unable to love others. It's kind of hard to see others when you're focused on yourself.

Miller said that he "wouldn't recieve love because it felt so wrong. It didn't feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to feel humble. But that was all crap, and it didn't make sense. If it is wrong for me to recieve love, then it is also wrong for me to give it becasue by giving it I am causing somebody else to receive it, which I had pre-supposed was the wrong thing to do. So I stopped."

God doesn't want me to hate myself. He defines my value, not me, and he tells me I am worth loving. God loves me! And if he does it, it's gotta be okay to do too.