Note: As a personal, spiritual discipline, reviving my practice in the Lenten season of 2017, I revise the prayers I wrote then for each of the forty days of this Lent; each petition focusing on a theme, a concern weighing on my mind and heart or a care of my soul and spirit.
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On self-knowledge, self-loathing, & self-love (being a meditation on 1 John 4.19)…
O my Lord, I oft fancy that one day soon I might love my self.
Yet, thus far in my living, I find myself daily paying this great cost of self-knowledge: Being too aware of my failings, too wary of my flaws, I cannot love my self without condition…
I cannot love myself without, at best, saying, sometimes with sorrow’s murmur, sometimes with loathing’s bellow, “If only I had not done (this or that), none of which I can forget and if only I was not (this or that), none of whom I can forsake, I might attempt my self to love!”
Yet, my Lord, Your Word teaches me that You, as Love, loved me first – and not first and once, but first and always, aye, first and forever – so that I can love.
Thus, I pray that I, by Your Spirit, may continue to know my lack, though not that I may cling more grievously to my despair, but rather that I may cleave all the more joyously to You, to Love.
Amen.
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
Paul,
I’d click the like button on this prayer but honestly it makes me sad! I hope that you one day can love yourself unconditionally just as God does (and many others too!)
Much love!
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Loretta, your words…you are kind to me. And I thank you.
Still, the way I have experienced it, life and my self, is that I, as human, cannot do anything – including loving my self – unconditionally. For as an inescapable aspect of my humanness is my limitations, my inability to do all things and, indeed, anything completely, then I cannot do anything without condition. For this reason, I, in faith, trust God and the unconditionality of divine love. At best, then, I strive to mirror that love for my self and for others, though, by definition and description, only partially.
All this said, as I also believe that God is a God of Self-revelation, I seek to remain open, that is, obedient to what God shows me about the divine-human relationship. Perhaps, one day, I can and will see more clearly how to replicate what hath been given me toward others and, indeed, my self.
Love and, again, my thanks
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