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Frank O'Hara, from Selected Poems

musings on august        

I don’t function well without sleep. Staying up late gives me a headache and I feel poorly the next day. Are there times when I’m called to sacrifice sleep to care for others? Yes, certainly. I’ve stayed up late before to talk friends through difficult moments or to take care of my son and let my husband rest, or to talk important things through with my husband. In those moments, the way I’m called to love others is at personal cost to myself.

But the next day, if I’m able to sleep in, I do. If I’m not, I go to bed early. I take care of myself because I cannot serve others adequately if I am burnt out.

Health is important. Stewarding our mental, physical, and emotional health is self-care, and it is caring for the resources and bodies God has given us. More, it is an important thing to model for younger generations. It’s harder to be patient and loving when you’re exhausted. Hangry is a real thing. Teaching others to take care of their physical needs is a good way of practicing holiness.

When Elijah despaired after facing off with Ahab and Jezebel, God’s response was to tell him to sleep and to send him food…to care for his body.

What, in this take I’m reblogging, constitutes self-love? Are we talking about protecting one’s ego at cost to others? Are we talking about putting one’s own interests, wants, and desires above anyone else? That is indeed unChristlike and unholy. But they didn’t clarify what they mean by self-love, and their condemnation of self-care concerns me.

Some interpretations of these verses would condemn any form of speaking of oneself positively. I grew up hearing the proverb “let another man praise you and not your own mouth,” to the point where I found it hard to accept praise. That isn’t helpful. How can we serve God with our gifts when we’re afraid to acknowledge those gifts?

I’m a good writer. I’m a good singer. I’m a joyful and empathetic person. And because I know these things about myself, I know how I am best suited to caring for others and contributing to my church.

How does one allow Christ to increase even as they use their own gifts? By practicing gratitude. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights. I’m a good writer, because God has both given me that gift and given me the means and connections to develop it. One might even say, to grow my self. I’m a joyful person both because of how He created me and because of the privileges He allowed me to grow up with.

And you know what? I do love myself. I am created by God, gifted by God, equipped by God to serve His body, to be His hands and feet. That’s a wonderful thing. Jesus said we are to love others as we love ourselves. If we have no self love, we have self-loathing, and that is a poor way to approach others.

Humans are naturally inclined to love themselves. We are naturally selfish. This is how the Bible can command us to love others as we love ourselves. Because even self loathing comes from a place of selfishness and turning inward. Many destructive decisions come from lost souls trying to find a way of self preservation. We love ourselves.

The only way to truly “take care of” oneself is by abandoning oneself and living solely for Christ. Because if we read our Bible, we will know we were made in the image of God and that our bodies are a temple. We will care for it as God commands. We will also know that we should humble ourselves and not commit sins such as gluttony. We will know that the most practical way of serving God on this earth is by serving our neighbors. We do not live for ourselves. We deny ourselves. This is biblical. We don’t need to “nuance” our way around it. Because you will find yourself in healthier habits naturally as an outflow of living for Christ rather than yourself. This is just basic Christianity and on obvious concept until the past few years of making selfishness trendy. You take this biblical ideal of caring for the body and manipulate to fit under the modern trend of self love and in the process work against a plain warning and condemnation in Scripture.