“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: The word is love.” -Sophocles

“There is no greater love than this, that man lay down his life for his friend.” -A Biblical Proverb

The highest level of love is the ability to sacrifice one’s life for somebody else. There have been songs about it, poems about and sermons about it on Sunday mornings. Politicians have used the concept to mobilize the human spirit, civil rights leaders have used the concept to fight through adversity, and people often use the concept to expose false love and intentions in others. Love has an ability to break down barriers, open doors, and connect people. It has a way of healing the hurting and restoring the broken. Love is the center of every great accomplishment and change in life and love must begin within.

Over the course of this past year, I was pushed beyond what I imagined I could handle. My spirit was quenched, my hope was faint, and my faith was challenged. In the middle of my struggles, I even found myself isolated and alone. Only you can identify with your true inner pain and only you can take responsibility for your recovery. There were times where I was surrounded by people, yet alone for these reasons. If you have ever faced adversity in life, you understand this type of despair. My despair was routed in a divorce that I went through. Your despair may be based on the loss of a career, a ended relationship or it may be routed in depression. Whatever your despair is, it has to be addressed for you to move forward.

When you are at the edge and you feel that you just may fall off of it, you must grab onto your life line. When the people seem distant and the situation seems hopeless, when your life seems like an abyss of stress and tragedy. How do you recover? You have got to be your own best friend. You have to look within, evaluate your pain, process your past, and plan your recovery! You have to lay down your life for a friend…you. What am I saying? To move forward to recovery, it requires action. You must make the choice to lay down your life of despair and sacrifice your pain so you can entertain new life in happiness. When I used to hear about the parable of the “greatest love,” I only related it to outer encounters. The true essence of this level of love is derived from your ability to love yourself first though.

The extent to which you love yourself directly correlates to your ability to love someone else at the highest levels. When I made a decision to lay down my pain, my past, and my despair for myself, I was able to begin the process of moving forward. You have to give up the current life of despair, so you can experience new life. There is no greater love that a person can have, than a love that begins within and resounds outwardly to others. When you begin to love yourself again, you begin to open yourself to loving and being loved by others again. When you lay down your former life, joy awaits, peace is abundant, and a new birth of you occurs. Lay down your life “for a friend,”for yourself so you can see all that life has for you. God’s gift of love is placed within us to heal, given through us to help and showed to us to save. We have, by Divine design, a love within us to help us recover! No love is greater…

“Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”
-Michael Masser and Linda Creed