Be Gentle With Yourselves

Here are the words I need to hear. Perhaps you need to hear them too:

Be gentle with yourselves, dear ones.

Be gentle.

For you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Give yourself grace, beloveds,

Then give yourselves some more.

Grace deserves seconds.

And while you are being so generous,

Give your neighbors some, too.

You are surviving something you could never have imagined,

And could never have prepared for.

Your neighbor is doing the same.

Each of you is made in the image of God

Exactly as you are.

And just so that we are clear.

You.

Yes, you who are reading this right now,

You are enough.

For you are loved with an everlasting love.

Not because of what you do or don’t do.

Not because of what you make or don’t make.

Not because of what you fix or don’t fix.

Not because of what you believe or don’t believe.

Not because of anything you could say to make it so.

You are loved with an everlasting love.

One that has no strings, hangups, or conditions,

Simply,

Because you are you.

And the ground you walk today - in grief, in anger, in love, in delight, in guilt, in tears, in anxiety, in frustration, in despair, in depression, in joy, in sadness, in some brutal or beautiful combination of the above…

This ground is sacred.

None of it will be wasted.

So be gentle with yourselves, dear ones.

Be gentle.

You are the only Love that someone may ever know.

So be love.

And love yourself.

Amen. (May it be so).