Going to God in prayer is going to warm, enveloping arms that surround us with love, a love so deep and accepting that our ripped-open hearts can begin to heal. Going to God in prayer is gazing into eyes filled with our own image, because we are God's children and God loves us endlessly. God's eyes penetrate our souls, reveal our beauty and unique gifts to us, forgive us, give us the courage to know ourselves and forgive ourselves. God's gaze reminds us that God is united to us deep in our souls, that nothing and no one can ever separate us from God and from the dignity that is ours because we are His.
God loves and accepts everything about us, including aspects that others might reject. The more deeply we can live surrounded by His love, the more deeply we can accept and love ourselves. Once we accept and love ourselves, we can be at peace with others' opinions of us, no matter how immature or misguided or malicious they may be. Once we accept and love ourselves, we can peacefully sift through others' opinions and criticisms to see if they contain any grains of truth - and then grow and change in response to them.
God wants us to live at peace with others, even if it is through our inner peaceful attitude towards others and not in outwardly peaceful relationships. Some will never accept us. But Jesus Himself was not accepted by everyone. Jesus teaches us to accept others "where they are," and leave them to God's justice and mercy. Sadly, often those who reject others are filled with self-hatred and unhappiness. Often they are unaware of God's healing love for them. Or they misunderstand Who God is. Or their minds and hearts have been swayed by the Father of Lies. Or they are the abused who have become abusers.
The more others hurt and persecute us, the more we need to clothe ourselves with Christ. To put on His mind and heart. To continue to do the work He has given us to do, unswayed by others' opinions. We can even pray to see others through His eyes and to recognize, more and more fully, that all human beings are connected spiritually through being the children of God.
Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and one of the most famous spiritual writers of the 20th century, recognized this fundamental interconnectedness of the human race, and lamented that so many people did not recognize their own self-worth as God's own beloved ones. He once had a deep mystical experience of people's beauty in God's eyes, and wrote
"There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun...Then it was as if I saw the secret beauty of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time."
The next time others hurt you and you doubt your self-worth, pray and immerse yourself in God's loving acceptance of you. See yourself in His luminous gaze. Pray for those who neither understand nor accept you, who live separated from you and God's deep healing love. Pray that you can recognize their inner beauty in God's eyes, even if they cannot and do not. Pray, with God's own anguish in your heart. For God continually longs and yearns for all His children to open themselves to His passionate love and see themselves with His eyes.