somebody wrote this and it really struck me. I don't know the name of the person though except that he was orthodox and, I think, a priest.
"To speak the truth in love, means not only to love but also to be myself lovable. Alas, for too many of us, the Gospel is not the revelation that we are loved by God, that is that I am lovable, but the opposite, that I am unloved. The fundamental anthropological truth of the Gospel is not that we are sinners, but that we are loved. Repentance is not grasping that I am a sinner, any fool with a modicum of self-knowledge and awareness knows that about himself. No. Repentance is knowing in a deep and personal way that I am loved. Based on their words and actions, I wonder how many, if any, of our self-appointed apologists know that they are loved? Love makes me gentle, patient, forgiving, respectful and long suffering with others in their struggles (see Gal 5). Where these are absent in speech, then (we can be sure) that it is merely a word spoken from my ego and that the Gospel is not being proclaimed."