The Moon Photo

Carston took a photo of me on the north coast of NSW in Australia. The moon is out and full, and I'm standing beneath it with my arms stretched upward, giving the illusion that I'm holding up the moon with my hands.

I HATE this photo.

Growing up, I often heard my Mom and Aunts make the statement like "you must learn to be happy with yourself." It was often said in the context of weight or weight loss, and has stuck with me these 30 years. There is merit in this little statement; it's true to the extent that the weight will never stay off (ie. you'll never be happy) until you learn that your value is not in how you look. I can focus on the negatives (for example, my face looks horribly chubby in this "moon photo'') but then I am devaluing myself by missing the positives (like the fact that my smile is beautiful in the photo). Somehow though, I missed the positives that night. And as a result of being unhappy with myself, my precious husband was affected and slightly regretted taking the stupid photo.

Now I know that this situation is a ridiculous, extreme example of what I want to say, and I can assure you it does not happen regularly. But it did cause me to really start thinking about the fact that how we FEEL affects others, and especially affects how we LOVE others. It also challenged me to follow my Mom's advice and learn to be happy with myself—not for the only sake of my sanity, but also for the sake of others in my world (such as my husband). What I've found is that a person who isn't happy with himself will not fully understand the power behind truly loving another. The person's concept of "love" is skewed by how they feel about themself. I am convinced that most people unknowingly settle for "good love" in their relationships because they haven't learned to really love themselves. A person who has learned to love himself/herself has traded the ability to love in a good way for the enjoyment of loving greatly.

This is a whole other topic on its on, but keep with me for a moment as I go down another trail (a trail that has little to do with weight issues, before you think this is a self-esteem essay)...

The Bible says in Matthew 22:34-40 that Jesus' greatest commandment is for man to love God, and then love his neighbour as himself. As an adult, I certainly realize the difficulty in loving my neighbour. I work in a café and don't love all of our customers. My literal neighbour who lives in our building stole a whole box of washing powder from our laundry room, and I don't love her very much right now. There's a person at my church that I avoid at parties because "love" is the furthest word from what I actually feel for them! Even as I write this, there's an annoying teenager outside that I would love to chuck raw eggs at (not a very loving action in most cultures).

So I guess here's the real dilemma for most of us. We have little idea how to really love ourselves (often a more private, secret problem), and loving others tends to conveniently infringe upon our "rights" as humans…that was sarcasm….so we take the easy road and hide our dislike for ourselves while we justify our inability to love others with baloney philosophies that give the appearance that we are caring for ourselves. And the sad truth is that when we act in this way, everyone misses out. We are enabled to keep hiding our unhealthy dislike for ourselves, and others miss out on the beauty of being loved by us.

Was Jesus giving us a command that is impossible to follow when He said to love God and love others? Much of the world can't work out how to love itself, much less truly love those around them even when they desire to do so. It's an example to a much lesser degree, but I couldn't even be happy with a photo of myself! The great apostle Paul gives some insight in Romans 7:15-25, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate to do….for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out…what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

I'm not quite sure how this works….sometimes I feel like it is fairytale magic or something…but God transforms us. He makes all things possible, even love. Jesus says in John chapter 15:5, "apart from me, you can do nothing." And Paul has the beautiful revelation in Romans 8:1 that there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (some translations say that Jesus set us free from "a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death"). 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that we are "new creations in Christ, the old is gone and the new is come."

I think it is best worded in 2 Peter 1:3: "His [Jesus'] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." The answer is in Jesus, who has made a way for us to love. And God, in His goodness, even covers our backs because Paul tells us in Philippians 1:6, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." He's still working on me, which means I don't have to be perfect, even in the way that I love!

Imagine a lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of how you feel about yourself or about others. I lost the battle for myself that night when I looked at the "moon photo," but by God's grace I can daily choose to remember where to find my value. And whether I am learning to love myself or my "neighbours," I know that apart from Him, I can only refrain from throwing raw eggs at teenagers heads or keep myself from jumping over a café counter to punch rude customers in the nose. Thanks to Jesus I can openly admit that I don't always like myself…and I can also love others even when I don't love myself.

I still hate that photo, but it has reminded me that Jesus is the only way to be free to enjoy a full life of great love.


Besides, I don't think I could jump high enough to clear the counter anyway.... :)