Love others to love myself.

Yesterday I watched the Mormon video of Christ healing the woman with the issue of blood. It was so powerful to me and basically had me sobbing. (Big surprise right?) But the thing that touched me so much was that Christ says to the woman "thy faith hath made thee whole". And I just thought, I want so badly to be made whole again. I want to be whole. Not broken and all messed up like I am. I honestly feel like during my marriage and right when it ended, my soul was almost completely broken. It was like I was a vase that was dropped and shattered. And over the years, the pieces have been put back together a little at a time. And the pieces that have been put back together have been built in even stronger than they were in the first place.

But watching that video made me literally cry unto the Lord and pray sincerely and tell Him of my desire to be whole. And I prayed that I could feel love for myself. I waited for a few minutes hoping to magically feel it right then and there, but I didn't feel anything. So I decided to read some scriptures and listen to some Primary songs. And I received an answer. I've actually felt this prompting several times recently but never before connected it to loving myself. The answer I got was: just to keep loving and serving others.

I have a picture on my wall that says, "Love yourself to love another". But in some ways, I think for me it's so  easy to feel love for everyone else except for myself. And I always want to show that love to others. After getting that answer, I just thought it was interesting that I just need to keep loving others, and eventually I know the Lord will help me love myself. (Plus a whole lot of other wonderful blessings that comes along with loving and serving others).

Yesterday I also finished my journal that I've been writing in for over two years. I was re-reading some of the entries today. In almost every single entry from when I was still at BYU (and first coming to D.C.) I talked about how scared I was about doing things, but I did them because I knew the Lord wanted me to. It's been great practice. Now, even though I'm still scared to do hard things, it's not as hard to just get started and do them because I know the good that will come from following promptings. I've been practicing doing scary and hard things for the past two years and I've seen how far I've come and how blessed my life is. I'm not as scared to take the initial plunge into the unknown because I know I will be successful with the Lord's help.