Girls' Chat With Titi Oladepo

Q: Please help me. I’m a young girl of 17 years. I have parents, a brother, sisters and friends who love me yet I fell nobody loves me; I feel lonely and I am getting tired of everything around me. Please what can I do?

A: Hi dearie. Let me start by saying this question is a very important one and I need you to carefully consider the answer. I say it is very important because LOVE is who God is and summarises the essence of our existence. I just remembered a line of one song I learnt in secondary school which says "we were made to love and be loved...."

You are indeed blessed dear with parents, a brother, sisters and friends that love you and show they do (at least you know they do). I don't want to assume that you know so let me tell you that there are many children who are not loved by even their mothers who bore them for 9months or don't know they are loved and this lack of knowledge has pushed them into doing some ridiculous things. So please don't stop thanking God for them because you can't thank Him enough.

What is the greatest commandment? I'm sure your answer is right and you will agree with me that there are three sides to it i.e Loving God, Loving yourself and loving others. There has to be a balance of these three aspects for you to fully enjoy the benefits of obeying the commandment. Sincerely, I can say categorically (because I have tasted it before) that the reason you feel unloved despite all the love showered on you is because you don't love yourself and you don't feel good about yourself. You most likely don't see anything good about you and this makes you feel all these people that claim they love you are not being honest with you. For me, I doubted people who said they admired me for whatever reason but readily believed them when they passed a negative comment.

But for the interest that God took in my final outcome, which I want to assure you that He has taken in yours too at this time, I wouldn’t have been in a position to answer this question. God taught me through people that love is a choice and not so much of a feeling. God has given you freewill to choose what you want for yourself. You need to choose to love yourself and by this I mean you begin to see yourself as God sees you. You need to understand dear that God loves you as His own and you hurt Him whenever you don't love yourself enough to appreciate what God has made, is making and will make of your life. I think it's important I mention here that if you feel you have committed too many sins that God cannot love you, you are getting it all wrong. God does not love what you do but He loves you enough not to leave you that way but to help you out of it if you will allow Him.

Please dear, you don't have to feel lonely or tired about everything. There is hope for you; it's only a matter of choice. Choose to see yourself the way God sees you and I'm sure you will love what you see. Please understand that though people try their best to show you they love you, you choose what you believe and accept. I want you to also know that we (MINE) belong to your group of friends that love you and you will really gladen our hearts if you accept our love. Please will you do this for us?

I love you sister; please love yourself so that my love can make sense to you.

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