By Morgan Blythe
Everyone is searching for something.
Your best friend, your professor, even your mailman, is searching too.
We search for the perfect outfit, the perfect filter, or the perfect picture to make our life look, in just this moment, enviable. We search for fulfillment, for acceptance, and for love. All because we want to be cared about. We want our lives to reflect well on us and for others to think that we’ve got it all together.
It is human nature to want intentional relationships with other human beings, it’s the way we’re wired. Our brains long for a community of encouragement, and we want the reassurance that we are valued.
But if we search for acceptance in others, we will never feel it for ourselves.
We have to accept who we are first, not just as humans but as someone who is cared for. We need to know that we are loved unconditionally and limitlessly. That kind of love is the love that allows us to discover who we are and be comfortable with what we find. That discovery of who we are is an incredible moment because it becomes less of what we want others to see and more of a genuine reflection of who we truly are.
We become okay with wearing this particular cardigan all the time because you love it and it reminds you of home. It becomes okay to not have enough likes on your Instagram post because you posted it for yourself, not for the approval of others.
However, the discovery does not come until after we realize we are loved. That is how it happened for me; I found myself after I realized the magnitude in which I am loved, not just with any kind of love, but the soul crushing, incredible and incomprehensible love of Jesus.
Once I understood it, it became the kind of love that wrapped me up in a warm embrace, like that of a mom or a best friend after you haven’t seen them in months. This love became a friend, a companion that was ever present in the best way possible. I held on to it because I finally understood that it was okay to not have everything figured out all the time. It’s okay that I still haven’t figured it out, or even close. The love of Jesus is a love that doesn’t run out, it just stands unwavering next to you.
I accepted my brokenness and the realization that I could never fix it or find someone else to heal it. I spent all that time searching for someone to come along and stitch up my wounds, but Jesus had already done it.
That big kind of love enabled me to love myself for each broken, messy part. From the me that everyone sees to the depths of my flawed soul, Jesus loves me the same. That kind of love is not found in the acceptance of others.
Once you accept that you are loved that well by someone who would die for you, it becomes apparent that you can love yourself because He loved us first.
Sister, you are loved.
Let that statement be an encouragement to the soul that is searching, to the soul that is unsatisfied, that is longing. You are loved, so very well.