When you have so much love to give, it can feel like you’re not getting that same love back from the people you care about. You’ve made an effort to understand everyone’s love language, giving them love in the way they feel most appreciated. Yet, it feels like no one is willing to put in the same effort for you.

Today, I saw a certain beauty in nature from a different perspective. Sometimes we toss away a fruit or a vegetable without thinking about what will happen to it—simply because we don’t want it, or maybe we don’t like it. And for the longest time, I felt like that discarded fruit or vegetable.

I lived comfortably in my father’s house, enjoying everything around me. Then, a man known to my father came to stay with us. I soon learned he admired my younger sister and wanted to marry her, so he worked under my father to earn her hand. But after seven years, when the time came for him to marry, my father chose to give me, his elder daughter, to him instead, without fully consulting him. Accepting the path fate had laid before me, I poured my love into the marriage, even though he continued to work for my father to finally marry my sister and start a family with her. I was genuinely happy for them, but I longed for the kind of love in my marriage that he poured into his relationship with her while I continued to pour my love into him.

A few years into our marriage, we discovered my sister could not bear children. One night, he came to me, and though it felt unkind and even forced, I was glad he was with me. Through that union, I bore our first son. This pattern continued over the years. I knew he didn’t love me, that he was only coming to me to fulfill his desires and have children. Eventually, my sister, seeing that I bore him children while she couldn’t, offered her servant to him as a wife, hoping that she could have a child for him to call her own. Though it pained me, I did the same and offered my servant to him. She, too, bore him children, and I called them my own.

In all of this, I learned that God had always been with me, loving me deeply even when I didn’t see it myself. I realized I’d been so focused on seeking love and validation from others that I’d forgotten my own worth and value in His eyes. My self-worth had become dependent on the love I received, and when it wasn’t returned as I hoped, I began to resent myself. I thought that if I could give more or be more, maybe I’d finally receive the love I longed for. But as I poured myself out, I lost sight of the love God had already given me, the love that had been there from the beginning.

It was only when I started to see myself through God’s eyes that I began to heal. He reminded me that I was not defined by others' actions or their love for me but by His unchanging love and purpose for my life. Slowly, as I learned to love myself, I noticed a transformation around me. My heart softened, and peace began to replace the ache I’d carried for so long. My husband noticed this change too. For the first time, he approached me with honor, seeing in me a dignity I had reclaimed. In this union, God blessed me as I bore him a daughter.

Remember, I spoke about nature’s quiet beauty and how things happen in their own time. I felt like a fruit discarded, yet there was a seed planted within me. That seed was nurtured by self-love, despite the garbage thrown around it and the rejection it faced. When the plant grew and understood its own worth, it produced fruits that nourished others.

This is my story. I am Leah, the mother of the tribes of Israel, the wife of Jacob. You, too, might feel like you’re giving and pouring out your love to everyone, yet find yourself tossed aside like an unwanted seed. But I’m here to tell you that you are deeply loved and will be highly honored. Start by loving yourself. And if you find it hard to believe this, seek help. It is honorable to seek support and to live a life where love abounds. Let these people here guide you on your journey to find true love within yourself.

– This journey taught me that true love begins within—nurtured by our Creator, reflected in how we treat ourselves, and ultimately, radiated outward.