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Final Wisdom

“To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not.”
― Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

This assignment was a bit harder than I thought would be possible because of some of the thoughts and emotions that I had to bring up in order to accurately write about each of the ten people I choose. If I am being honest with myself I have to admit that my relationships with everyone on the list I have either strained or distanced myself from to certain extents because of my own self abhorrence. If I treated and spoke to myself better would I have the issues that I have with my wife and my Heavenly Father? 

I’ve always hated the saying that you can’t truly love anyone until you love yourself and the reason why I hate it is because I don’t want to accept that I am not fully and truly loving those in my life. That I haven’t truly accepted them into my life because I haven’t accepted myself for all the good, bad, and ugly that is my soul. Does my self-hate really eclipse my love for everyone else? 

Yes, yes it does and I need to come to terms with that regardless if I want to or not.

I really have a hard time being totally open and honest with anyone and everyone which means I am not truly giving myself to anyone including myself and my God. I know that my Heavenly Father knows everything about me including the darkest corners of my mind and the stains on my spirit from my own actions of the past. Yet when I pray I never fully open up to communicate with Him, I hesitate and hold back and it’s the same thing with my wife. I’ve noticed that the closer I am to someone, the harder it is for me to be totally open and speak to them in that manner. 

I don’t know why I have gotten this way. Is my heart hard or am I that fearful of being hurt by those I love? Why am I so uncomfortable to let in those knocking? While I’ve had plenty of “ah-ha” moments, I am left with questions nagging at my very being.
 

Comments

  1. BridgettepattersonNovember 19, 2018 at 2:55 PM

    Your thoughts here:

    "I’ve always hated the saying that you can’t truly love anyone until you love yourself and the reason why I hate it is because I don’t want to accept that I am not fully and truly loving those in my life."

    reminded me of a scripture that may be consoling and hopefully enlightening:

    1 John 4:18-19
    18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

    19 We love him, because he first loved us.

    Even when it's hard, even impossible, to love ourselves, we know that Christ loved us first, and continues to love us no matter what. As we turn to him, His love emanates through us to our closest relationships.

    ReplyDelete

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