At not even two I was asked by my parents who I loved (mom, dad, my grandparents). My reply was, “I love all the people all da (the) times.” And that was how my two year old self saw it…I could love all of the people of of da times…As I grew older I continued to use that word, “love”…I LOVED everything…but did I really…?

If you asked my friends (especially in high school) what my favorite word was, they would have most likely said, “MK’s favorite word is love. She loves everything…” I even remember a disagreement I got into with three of my best guy friends, my junior year of high school during pre-cal (I don’t know which is funnier the fact that I actually took pre-cal or  that I thought I could get anything done at a table of three high school boys). They claimed that there was no way I could actually love everything and everyone…I claimed there was, (from my pencil, to them, to one of their girlfriend’s I had never met) I loved them all.

Now here my friends is the problem… my friends got something right that day. I could love a lot of things but I couldn’t possibly LOVE everything…God has given me a great ability to love (others and to have passions I love) but the thing was I didn’t love everything. However, I  thought I was supposed to…MK, HAD to love everything. This desire to love and please everyone with this love, became a huge battle for me and indeed fed my relationship with ED.

You see there were (and are) many things I didn’t love. For example, I don’t love homework, math, science, tomatoes, gossip, video games…and I REALLY don’t love ED. That’s where ED’s lies came in…he told me I had to love everything including my relationship with him and that if I didn’t… well I was not only failing myself but I was also letting everyone else down (crazy right?!).

It wasn’t until I got farther into my recovery that I realized that it was okay if I didn’t love it all…and heck if I didn’t even like somethings. Instead of walking in the truth that it was okay to have opinions on different things…I walked in lies that I had to be this walking billboard for love.

These lies became my truths and I put so much effort into loving ED and our relationship that I didn’t realize that I wasn’t loving myself…in fact I was showing myself a whole lot of hate. For ED and I to begin to part ways I had to recognize that I was allowed to have (and SHOULD HAVE) opinions (on everything especially myself) and that loving myself meant hating (a new word to add to my vocabulary) him.

In the beginning to distance and break off my relationship with ED, (a long process) I began to express my opinion on how and what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do these things. And of lot of that meant disagreeing with ED and his rules. And this in turn meant making mistakes. I was finding out things that I once told myself I loved (I  truly didn’t love )and even finding out things that I had never tried that I actually did love.

Because I began to recognize ED’s lies I got to experience true life and true love. I fully got to love life and even more love others…even more, this allowed others to love the real me (something I had never really let people do). So today, I still have a lot of loves… I love Jesus. I love my family. I love my friends. I love my Kendall kids. I love writing. I love my church. I love crafting. I love coffee. I love fashion…and the list goes on. Like I stated before there are also a lot of things that I don’t love (and many of those involve icky flying and scaly creatures…ick!!).

Maybe there are things that you love…or don’t love… However, unless you let go of that relationship (with ED or whoever and whatever you call it) you’ll never get to experience the true love of many things and life in general. So next time you hear those lies…think about that sweet thought. And ALWAYS remember…

YOU are LOVED and YOU are WORTH it!

❤ MK