Beauty and the Beast

G. K. Chesterton once said that the really great lesson of the story of "Beauty and the Beast" is that a thing must be loved before it is loveable. A person must be loved before that person can be loveable. Some of the most unlovely people I have known got that way because they thought that nobody loved them.

The fact of the matter is that unless and until we feel ourselves loved, we cannot love. That's not only a principle of theology but of psychology and sociology as well. Just as abused children grow up to abuse their children, loved children grow up to love their children. Loved persons are able to love. Unloved persons are not.

Christianity says something startling. It says that God loves and accepts us "just as we are."

Therefore we can love and accept ourselves and in so doing, love and accept others.

Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com