Some days my heart aches

Some days my heart just aches. It aches for the brokenness I see all around me.

In particular my heart aches for young children and youth who suffer.

In 2006 my sister died. She died because...she was sick. Because she had mental and emotional illness that ate away at her. Because she had experiences that triggered her biology. Because...I don't know. There were just so many things. I never felt like I could place blame. There were just too many contributing factors.

But underneath all of those contributing factors there was a basic truth, I believe. Or rather, a basic lie. At her core, for whatever reason, my sister believed that she was not good enough. That she was unlovable. That she was insufficient. And she believed this at the deepest level of her being. It was a lie that formed a foundation for her life I think. And it's a lie that I see everywhere and it makes my heart ache more than anything imaginable.

I spent years believing this lie. Years and years. And it's not something I was explicitly taught. My family loved me. I went to a good school. I knew kind and loving people at my church and in my community. And yet...I learned to embrace the lie.

And I meet people every single day who believe this lie. I meet little children and youth and young adults and the elderly who think, though they don't necessarily say it outright, that they are not good enough. I hear it in their words, I see it in their eyes.

All of us think or are told that we should be taller, shorter, thinner, smarter, faster, more assertive, less assertive, kinder, gentler, stronger, more trendy, more successful...

When all we really "should be" is loved. That's it. That's all. That's all that is required. And ultimately, that's not something that we do, it's something that we are.

I know our culture, and in this I include my church culture, teaches explicitly and implicitly that we are to continually grow and improve and become more perfect throughout our lives. More wise, more holy, more just, more peaceful. But I choose to believe that the only thing that is required of me is that I become more aware of the fact that I am loved beyond measure. If all I do in my life is learn to recognize that I am loved, then that will have been enough, I think. At the end of this life when I fall into the arms of God I wish to do so with the fullest knowledge possible that I am loved.

Perhaps this sounds lazy, or irresponsible, or reckless, or self-centered. Maybe I should aim higher. Jesus said the greatest commandment is that we love God and love our neighbours as ourselves. But I can't help but think that if each of us spent our lives simply learning to live into our belovedness, that this world would be a different place. After all, is it not essentially the same thing to know love as to be love? I imagine that if the individuals who put together ads for AXE products recognized their belovedness, that their ads would take a sharp turn. If our young girls knew at their core that they were loved, maybe they wouldn't hurt themselves anymore. And if each one of us could look into the mirror in the morning and see love radiating...who knows what might be possible.

I wish my sister could have looked into the mirror and seen love. More than anything in the world that's what I would have wished for her. That's what I wish for you, that's what I wish for me.

I know that I am loved, but each day there are still moments when I catch myself holding the lie before me. The lie that I am not enough. The lie that I should strive to be something that I'm not, or strive to be more than what I am. The lie that masks my own belovedness. But I am grateful that I'm learning to recognize the lie for what it is. I'm learning to see when the lie stands between me and my belovedness, between me and God. And when I recognize it, then I have a choice. I can choose to keep holding the lie, or I can tell the lie where to go and how to get there. Most days, I choose the latter. And each time I kick that lie to the curb and recognize my own belovedness, it get's a little bit easier.