We can embrace every part of ourselves because God does.
"We love because He first loved us."
1 John 4:19 (NIV)
God invites us to love with unconditional, perfect love..THAT is exactly how HE loves..how HE loves US! God loves us with His whole heart, His whole soul, with all of His mind, and with all of His strength..with all that He is..He loves us as Himself.
Wow! He loves the hurting and wounded people, loves the littlest and the least, loves the ones others have forgotten, even loves the one we try most to forget and deny, the part of ourselves that we may call 'enemy,' the part we are ashamed of and may despise or try to hide- our own needy, helpless, hurting and hurtful selves! He loves that part of us that is wounded and little and lashing out in fear and bitterness, who has forgotten how to love, forgotten what it ever felt like to be loved..that is the one He loves, the one we think is our 'true inner selfish self'...when in reality it is only the hurting and confused and tormented mind, not the deepest part of ourselves at all. Who we are at our core is part of God, one with God, and therefore always perfectly lovable and loving!
We love with an infinite, unconditional love because that is Who we came from and are part of, that is how we were always loved and always will be loved, that is the swaddling blanket we are eternally wrapped in, that is the core of our existence, that is the hub of our universe and the center upon which all of time and eternity is grounded..that LOVE is WHO WE ARE, Who we came from, and Where we are going to be forever!
A Thought: He loves all of us, every part of us, in sunshine and shadow, waking or sleeping, rising or falling, living or dying..HE loves us and holds us and that is the ground of our whole lives.