The Annoying Truth

Hello Live by Faith Family! My name is Skylar, & I am so honored to share with you today. I love speaking about Jesus, and encouraging anyone I can to dream big & have ‘Heavenly Faith’ as I call it. It’s so funny to me that having faith is my biggest passion, and Faith Edwards (CEO & founder of this blog) is my bestest friend. God knew what He was doing with that lol.

Fun fact, back when I was in highschool, I had a ‘blog’ that was my main outlet for communicating about The Lord. Since then, a lot has changed and it has been years since I've shared via blog post. Which makes this opportunity an even bigger privilege. So again, I am so grateful to talk with you & I hope that The Lord speaks personally to you clearer than any word may on this screen.

Today, the topic we are gonna dive into is loving yourself. I don’t know about you, but sometimes that phrase can bring on a subconscious eye roll from me. My biggest desire since I have been really young has been to be a wife. I’m talking, if I had the slightest interest in being with somebody… I gotta see how their last name sounds with Skylar before I catch feelings because that really could be a deal breaker lol. Anyways, I have always taken relationship stuff very seriously as a result of that desire. With that level of seriousness typically means you will be single most of the time, usually against your will because The Lord blocks all of the options you would like to have as place holders until your husband gets his life together. I’m joking yet 100% serious at the same time!!! lol.

When hearing pastors, leaders & true friends who had been delivered from the “curse that is singleness” (or so I thought it was for many years) speak, they all typically had one phrase that they all loved to share during their time encouraging the discouraged single. While there are many cliche phrases that are spoon fed to us often, the one that made me so irritated was this one:

“just LOVE YOURSELF and then you will get in a relationship!”

“your husband is on the other side of you loving yourself!”

“once you love yourself, you won’t even WANT a man”. Blah,blah,blah.

I slightly resented that phrase because for the longest time, all I viewed it as was the ONE roadblock to the biggest desire of my heart. But truly ladies, loving yourself far exceeds any romantic relationship we will ever find ourselves in.

Loving yourself is not for romantic gain or personal leverage. Loving yourself is about participating in one of the most beautiful gifts The Lord has given us.

Love is an active gift God gives to us that we are first to receive & enjoy for ourselves, then we are to lavish on others. Love is our mission. It is our God given commandment to love others AS we love ourselves like Jesus instructs us in Matthew 22:39. Love has kingdom purpose, and should not be watered down to act as a pacifier to romantic longing. Yes true love DOES indeed heal romantic longing, but if our only motive for practicing love towards ourself is romantically motivated, we are doing ourselves a major disservice.

Friend, it is our literal duty to love ourself. We must see it, treat it & honor it as the responsibility that it truly is. If you solely love yourself in feeling & not action, I regrettably inform you that THAT is not love at all.

LIKE is a feeling, LOVE is a choice.

We are not tasked by Jesus to show ourselves just any kind of love. He challenges us to love ourselves, the way HE has loved us. Though we may never hit the mark of loving ourselves perfectly, we have our whole lives to daily love ourselves more like Jesus does, and as a result love those around us more like Jesus as well.

I hope this word encourages you. I felt the conviction hit my own heart as I am typing these words out & I intend to love myself even better moving forward. God is so good, what an honor it is to be loved perfectly by Him. participate in the gift of love today, tomorrow, & until it is our forever. I love you! & hey…. LOVE YOURSELF!