As You Love Yourself

He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  Luke 10:27 NIV

I have been thinking about this since before I went to bed last night.  I have been thinking of how to share this...whether to do an Instagram post or break my Lent fast from Facebook because it seemed so important to share, or whether to simply share it with my girlfriends as I have been doing the last few days.  For preservation of anonymity, I decided to do what I do best..write.

After bible study, I had a conversation with a friend that turned to the topic of my singleness.  He asked, why don't I have a boyfriend?  My reply was the truth, in that I wanted to detox, release all the baggage of relationships past, release all of the things that have happened to me over the years, be the best me I could be, and do what God asked me to do, but do it for myself.  I admitted I wanted to be in a relationship, loved being in one, but I wasn't ready for it.  As I got off the video, I realized that this was something much more than that.  Back in 2009 after my transplant, one of the things I asked of God was that He teach me to love others the way He loved me and to love myself that way too.  So as He spoke to my heart last night and reminded me of that, I realized that I was loving myself the way God wanted me to love myself by choosing to remain single and celibate until I meet my husband.  I was loving myself so that I could love my neighbors as myself.  Let's be real, how can you love other people if you don't love yourself?

I tried writing this last night before I went to sleep...but delirium and tiredness hit me heavy.  As I woke up with this on my mind, it kept coming back to me that it would have been impossible for me to fully love someone, my future husband for example, if I continued to carry around all of the filth and garbage from the past.  I realized that I could not give God or him all of me in holding on to what BoBo did to me or mistakes I made.  I realized I could not love Marquita and thus I could not love others being who I used to be.  Yesterday, I shared with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and undoubtedly the world how I woke up feeling beautiful.  I never in my life experienced that feeling...and I didn't have on any makeup or lip gloss...just a smile and my clothes that are almost two sizes too big in some areas lol.  I realized that of all of the things I have gone through in the last 8 months of this Esther purification process (reply if you'd like more details in how God has been transforming me), the greatest lesson has been in loving myself.  The products of this journey so far include knowing my worth, being able to be brutally honest with myself about the mistakes I have made, listening to and learning from others, and just embracing me for everything that includes...in essence, loving me.

I think of this scripture and it dawned on me how it is apparent that there is a lack of love in the world, and that the enemy's attempts at perverting everything God has created are in actuality, working--but I digress because God already has the glory from this.  Hate is apparent in every area of our lives, from global interactions to day-to-day driving experiences.  People are isolated and cut off from real interactions with others, they flip people off when driving, or in my case, threaten to ride around with a bucket of rocks to beam at people every time they do something I don't like on the road, lol.  But this is not how God intended us to be.  I have learned that it is in loving God--submitting, being obedient, and trusting Him, having faith in every single thing He says--that I learned to love me.  The things I have done have been unorthodox, even strange (but hey God is extraordinary, if Naaman dipped seven times in the dirty Jordan and was healed of leprosy...then my celibacy and singleness are mere tasks for the greater glory He will soon reveal).  

You cannot love yourself walking around in shame.  You cannot love yourself walking around dragging generational curses (which, YOU have the authority to condemn and break, Isa 54:17) or by allowing yourself to be oppressed by demonic influences (let's be real...lust, perversion, whoredoms, addictions, depression, and bondage define the world we live in...and it was only after being delivered from it that I recognized its hold on me, but more about that to come soon).  You cannot love yourself ignoring the truth.  The truth is, it has been in my obedience and willingness to trust God that I have learned so much.  I have lost so much 'weight' both literally and spiritually, because I got fed up with not loving myself and going back to why this and why that, why isn't my life going the way I want it to go.  It all started because I loved someone else so much that I wanted to forgive and be a better woman...  But there was a greater gift in store for me, because this journey has been so beautiful--I finally love who I see everyday looking back at me, unconditionally.  This journey has opened my eyes to seeing the beauty in others, and also in being loving to others even when the old me could give two...craps about even speaking to people.  The greatest commandments--to love God and to love others as ourselves--can change the world if practiced.  It is my hope that in my sharing this process, and eventually the whole of it with you all, that you will go against the norm, against society's demands of assimilation, and be the agent of change in your sphere of influence.  I am sure your journey to true self-love--how can you love yourself if you don't love God--and love of others will be different from my own...but stop resisting it and just be!  Love your neighbors as you love yourself...love yourself today!

"I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another."  John 13:34 HCSB

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"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17
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Who Gave You the Gavel?

Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but don't notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and look, there's a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Matthew 7:3-5 HCSB

If you know me well enough by now, you know I have a deep abhorrence of hypocrites.  (That's just my being fancy and saying I don't like judgmental people, lol).  I pray daily for an open mind, and that God shows me the beauty in all things and people.  Over the years I have grown to despise the tradition of religion and sought to understand God for myself.  I recognized along the way that there are many people that put God in a box and so if you do not fit in that box, something must be wrong with you.  After coming to terms with my calling, I struggled hard with this.  Modern day preachers and prophets don't fancy a woman speaking her views on God, let alone teaching others about God.  Along with this, I have learned that if you do not look a certain way, talk like this or dress like that, you will garner a certain amount of sideways stares.  I am about as different as they come, well not all the way.  I have several tattoos, dress very fashionably at times, unique at others, love love love heels, and shy away from anything screaming tradition.  So from this I am sure you know my plight, lol.

I love this passage because it reminds us to look first at ourselves.  I'll be the first to admit that I found flaw in everyone, having grown up to pick and point out other people's flaws.  That would be alright for a while, then when I got by myself and looked at myself, I would tear myself apart too, mainly because of the insecurities I had developed out of the things I had experienced growing up.  Out of that birthed the need to protect and defend others, and to stand up for myself.  The first person to say something disrespectful to me they would get their own tongue-lashing back, when I got older and stopped holding my tongue so much.  Then as I grew tired of having to defend myself all the time, I realized the true source of the problem was the enemy and his efforts to discourage me from truly embracing what God wanted for me, which is relationship with himself and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I will not sit here and write that I have a clean slate for my past.  I have done my share of wrong, made my share of bad choices.  I have hurt people and myself.  But the one thing I have learned is that God forgives.  Just as He is our ultimate judge, He also loves us so much that He will forgive our wrongs without need for anything in return.  We are not the judge and jury (law school joke haha) so what gives us the right to slam the gavel on others?  Now, there is a difference between bringing an issue before your brother or sister in Christ and talking about them and casting judgment.  But the bittersweet part of all of this is that we can only learn the difference when we let God remove the blinders from our eyes that hide our truth.  Don't you want to see with clear vision?  Remove your plank today and really see yourself as you are.

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Matthew 7:1-2 NIV

Looking for Love

I haven't written poetry in years but today and with everything that has been happening lately and truthfully my observations about life lol, I felt inspired.  Hope it blesses you!  Patience is a virtue and I will begrudgingly continue being patient haha!

Looking for Love

Love, where are you?  I've been searching high and low for you, looking over, in under and through people to find you, but your presence still evades me.

Love, where did you go?  Why did you leave me? The air is still tinged with your aroma, with the effervescence of your essence and I still…can't…find…YOU.

Love do you still exist?  So much that my friends and family resort to a computer screen to find you when you used to be in between the cosmic condensation of space, called now, something we witnessed in our parents and grandparents, but yet now you elude us as life dilutes us from what is real…what is…you.

Love, what do I need to do, to have you here with me, permanently, conjunctively, with no dysfunctions or disjunctions?  What do I need to do to feel your lasting warmth, your sweet embrace and to admire your lovely face?  What do I need to do to just hold you, feel you and taste the air you breathe, my eyes are blind and I cannot see without you.

Love, deep in my heart I cannot doubt the seeds you planted when you left.  I cannot allow the reality of right now to disillusion me against the realness of your message, of your sentences filled with verbs—your words, singing to my heart, that even though sometimes we are distant we will never part, that you hold my heart.  Even when chasing dreams and ambitions hide your smile from eyesight's view, I must keep hold of vision, to you I remain true.

Love, thank you for the reminder that when I doubt you're there I must look within to that place, that now dark, damp and dusty place where you once lived, and if I gaze on the memory I realize that you never left me and you will always live within me as long as I am true to myself and remember why My Father gave you to me…so that others can see Him through me, so that each days mercies are new to me, and so that He can use me, to find you.

 

Marquita 02/20/2013

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn't jealous. It doesn't sing its own praises. It isn't arrogant. It isn't rude. It doesn't think about itself. It isn't irritable. It doesn't keep track of wrongs. It isn't happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.
Love never comes to an end.

Your Perfect Circle

The LORD will perfect that which concerns me: your mercy, O LORD, endures forever: forsake not the works of your own hands. Psalm 138:8 KJV2000

This has been on my heart for a while to write.  I had been thinking of how my life has changed drastically in the last 3 years: lost friends, made some lifelong ones, finally adjusted to my life without my daddy, set plans in motion to move, moved nearly a 1000 miles away, started law school, got a new niece, made a vow to God to not cut my hair (as DIFFICULT as that is for me lol) and to honor my temple, gained new ministry opportunities, realized some of the gifts I have, finished my book and finally embraced me.  One of the things that stood out the most for me was how God started moving people in and out of my life, which turned out to be the most painful part of the process.

When you are on your path to oneness with God, He will most definitely have you do some strange things.  I cannot begin to tell you all the things God has had me do and a lot of them were uncomfortable.  It hurt to not have some people on this journey with me, but it is all a part of trusting the process.  I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3, where we are told by Solomon that there is a time, a season for everything under the sun, and this most definitely includes relationships.  Some friends I would not have imagined I would be without right now.  At one point or another, I thought our relationships were covenant, forged in the fire of adversity to be lifelong.  However, I was wrong.  During that process, God has revealed to me that everyone was not my friend for the necessity of simply being my friend.  No, they had become my friend for what I could do for them, or for what they saw in me, and how that thing could benefit them.  

The pruning process is hard and painful.  It's much like removing a mole: depending on the method, you could be numbed to it and feel the pain afterwards, or you could be wide awake and feel it be snatched off of you, or you could be brave enough to do the callous thing yourself!  I had to end some relationships because the person's dependency on me was unhealthy and they honestly took more away from me than they added.  Others were snatched from me by life and circumstance.  Either way I was not happy--not happy to have to lose a friend, not happy to have to man up and do something that had long needed to be done, or simply not happy over having to step outside of my comfort zone.

I look at the scripture above and I think about this...God will perfect those things concerning me, even my choice of friends.  I have some friends I have had for years and I see how God has grown us and matured us so our relationships could survive the test of time.  I also see how He has used me and my walk to be an encouragement to others, even though it is very uncomfortable to be so open with some of the things I have gone through.  But I realize yet again, He was just perfecting my circle, making sure those that are around me reinforce those same principles He wants me to reflect.  I don' t know if you have ever been in a fun house at the fair, with all the mirrors.  But if you have been, and all the lights are on, have you ever noticed how bright the lights are in the part where the mirrors are arranged so that you see yourself in all the mirrors?  Why is the light so bright?  It is simple, yet complex: the mirrors reflect each other's light.  And so will your perfect circle will reflect your light.  Maybe it's time to check your circle, or turn on the light.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.  Philippians 1:6 NASB 

Going Against the Status Quo: Radical Obedience

Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, "Go wash seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be clean." 2 Kings 5:10 HCSB

God has been having me do a whole lot lately, to stretch myself and to rid me of attitudes, behaviors, and unnecessary things that have hindered my journey.  One thing in particular has been an increase in having difficult conversations.  If you know me, I typically avoid conversations I do not want to have.  I felt like if I ignored a thing long enough it would simply go away.  Sadly, I realize now that it is a product of the things that happened to me growing up--I ignored, or rather, refused to acknowledge, some ugly truths until some other stimulus forced it to emerge from the cauldron.  It is like boiling anything under pressure.  Once the pressure builds to a high enough level, that thing is bound to boil over, and for me, it was not always pretty when it came out--but I digress, because when is the truth ever pretty?

One of my prayers has been for boldness.  God in His awesomeness forced my hand with the first situation, because I had no intention of paying this thing a second thought.  But God had the situation come to me, and when I got off the phone, I felt the press on my heart to say something more.  I ignored it, so I woke up the next day with the words to say on my mind.  All day that following day I procrastinated, but I prayed for the courage to have the conversation.  Then alas after a strange series of events that following morning, now day 3, I couldn't fight myself anymore and had the conversation.  To my surprise it went well, even after what felt like haggling to finally say what God instructed me to say.  So since then, I have been presented with other situations to question myself while doing something out of my comfort zone...and all have left me asking God, why do You have ME doing this?

To that, there is no obvious answer.  Whether it is having a difficult conversation, swallowing a pill of your being wrong and admitting it, arguing your view, following some strange course to be healed or ignoring the need to stand up for yourself, the purpose behind all of these situations is to teach us obedience.  Nowadays we live in a world where obedience is a foreign language, albeit unrecognizable for most.  We have media telling us to cry mutiny against our leadership and encouraging the proliferation of violence among our children and we also have cartoons teaching children to lie and be disobedient.  Radical obedience seems to be unfounded;  as I thought about this earlier, I was reminded of Naaman, in 2 Kings 5, the Syrian general who was also a leper.  He heard of in Samaria through one of the servants and his ability to heal him.  Upon arrival, Naaman offered Elisha money to be healed.  Instead, Elisha sent one of his servants to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan 7 times.  This sounds like a pretty ridiculous thing to do to Naaman, (and me also) so he got angry--and replied that there were better rivers that he could have done the same thing in.  How many times have you asked God for a thing and He gave you a reply like, go apologize or give that woman $20, or something absurd in your rational, human mind?  

It was not until his servants rephrased it, thus shedding light on the situation, that Naaman actually considered the solution.  After washing himself those 7 times, his skin was as a child's skin and he was clean.  I do not know what God's entire purpose was in those things I experienced, I know teaching me boldness for sure and I assume building my confidence in Him, but I also gained the understanding of why we need to be obedient.  You never know if your doing that radical thing God has been pressing on your heart is the key to your breakthrough, so why not at least try?  In this process, I have encountered those less than willing to hear what I had to say, but I know that my reward is in doing what I was instructed to do.  And the more you are obedient, God will entrust you with more and greater tasks...consider it an honor!

For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have more than enough. But from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.  Matthew 25:29 HCSB