by Heide Dangelo
Copyright Heide Dangelo
God spoke to us in the bible A s telling us to love God first, before we can love ourselves and others. It was tough for me to grasp as I did not understand how that works. I thought that by loving others first, I would eventually grow into loving myself; I found out I was wrong. Self-love is a journey that we go through with God. It takes dedication, devotion, practice, realization, growth, discovery, and much more. And it all starts with God. “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life with him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (1 John 4:7-13).
I realized that our greatest life lesson is learning how to fully realize, accept, and love God. It will happen when we understand who we are in him. For God so loved the world that he GAVE his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) But to all who believe in him, and accept him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or pain, but a birth that comes from God. (John 1:12-13). Once we know and love God, he shows us our value to him. Out of a heart full of gratefulness, we give our love to others without becoming resentful and depleted.
As A child growing up into adulthood, I was a victim of all kinds of abuse; neglect, starved, physical, mental, verbal, and emotional by my mother, sister, stepmom, and classmates from school. However, God was always at my side assuring me that he was there and loved me when no one else did. At age 19, I left home to get away from the cycle of abuse. I had no self-esteem, no one thought I was worthy of love, so how could I love myself? I started my spiritual journey in the wrong place. I wanted to find a man who would love me for who I am, I dated many different men to find love and went to many different varieties of churches to help me find the love I longed for. I wanted human love and affirmation so badly that I believed God show me a vision of a figure of a man whom I would marry in the future.
I finally met the man whom God had shown me in the vision, and I asked God, what about love? I am not in love with him, but this is the man you showed me in the vision. God seemed to be telling me that love will come later. I later had three kids and my love grew for my kids and others however my love for my husband was still not there. I asked God again, “I worked on myself with self-help spiritual books, and still could not figure out how to love him. I still didn’t know how to love God or myself. Yet God seemed to say, “Don’t worry, love will come later.”
I continued to go to various books, about self-love, accepting churches, read self-help and spiritual practiced words of affirmation, think love, did acts of service, took action on self to receive gifts to absorb self-love, I spent quality time with myself, I went to workshops, seminars and more… to help myself to love him and myself, that elusive love still did not come..
I knew something needed to change, when all my kids grew up and moved out on their own, I sat down with my husband informing him of my goals. I expressed to him that I decided to pursue my dreams teaching the Law of Attraction to the Deaf community and to become an author and speaker, he replied: “what about me?” Since I still did not understand how God fit into the equation, I was unable to explain my heart to him. All I could tell him that he is an adult, like me, and I cannot make him happy, but he can only make himself happy.
My husband did not like seeing me happy doing things I liked to do and started to become verbally, emotionally, and mentally abusive towards me. I became more and more depressed as he continued his ways by not feeding or watering me (spiritually). I was slowly dying. I had a heart attack from all the stress, my hormones were out of whack, I was getting sick often with fibromyalgia flare-ups, shingles flare-ups, lack of sleep, overworking, and other illness appearing.
I asked God again when would love for my husband come? This time God seemed to say, “the grass is greener on the other side.” I asked, “how can I survive on my own, plus I can’t leave him because he loves me.” God seemed to say, “When there is fear, there is no love.” Shortly thereafter, my husband raised his hand as if to strike me, I ducked like I did as a child, at that moment I realized I had married my mom! There was something wrong with me because I was in fear like I had as a child. There was no love there. I decided to divorce him and he wanted to hold on to me. Then one day he texted me and asked if there any chance for us to get back together again, I said, “No. Living with you, I was slowly killing me. I was under so much stress that my health was tanking. I was not happy. I had a choice to be happy or die, I am now choosing to live and to be happy.”
During the divorce, my kids were mad at me. Their father had convinced them that I was the bad person and didn’t love them. During this time, I really learned to trust and lean on God. I learned that to love God meant that I should love myself. He gave his life to pay the penalty for my sins. If he loved me that much, how could I not love him? I trusted in God and asked him to help us all get through this without more drama.
I did not want to date or have any relationships after the divorce since God had showed me that I was attracting the same type of people that my mom and husband had been. If I continued dating these people, the cycle of being a “victim of abuse” would continue. I decided to let go, trust God, work on my self-improvement, and let him lead me where he wanted me to go, be it to a man who would love me, or if I would have to be single, he knew what was best for me. Then it happened, I met the man who would become my soulmate! I found out we both had issues from the past that we were dealing with, and we enjoyed going to workshops and seminars to learn how to break the cycles of thinking that keep us trapped in negative behaviors.
At one of the workshops, we were challenged to give dating a chance. We both hesitated, but then decided to give it a try with the understanding that we did not want to have a relationship at that time. I, however, had a question for him that had been bothering me a lot. I asked him, “How would you feel if we began dating and you saw me talking to another guy? Would you become jealous, or accuse me of cheating on you?” He said, “Of course not! If we were dating, I would be putting my trust in God and in you.” At that moment, I felt relieved from my “eggshell prison” that I was in. I felt free to date him, knowing that we trusted each other on the same level.
We found out we liked the same things, had the same experiences, did the same things, our body was alike (sciatic nerve pain in our lower back and our neck), we like the same food, believed in the same things, we even have the same food allergies, we both like to help others, we realized we are soulmates. However, I did realize something… since my soulmate and I liked the same things, do the same things, think alike, belief the same as me, he trusts me completely, and much more… We were so much alike, and I was in love with it and felt so free, it dawned on me that I loved myself more because he was like me. Once I realized it, I thanked God for him and my love for God was real and found myself loving myself more, my love for everyone increased… It was an amazing love that I never knew. The love became a complete circle as it was written in the bible. 1. Love God 2. Love yourself 3. Love thy neighbor as yourself 4. Back to loving God. (The complete circle of Love) The answer how to love yourself, is in God alone. He will lead you to the things you like/love and enjoy doing, He will lead you to the desire of your heart, if your heart is in tune with him. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT) ~ Heide Dangelo
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