It is only when we come to total and unconditional "love" of our own darkness that we can know God incarnate in us, loving and understanding us in our totality. Pascal says that no one can love God without knowing their own misery.
...If we can stay in touch with ourselves, if
we can find the connection to our deeper
selves, we can find this deeper level of
hope that truly should be called
imagination...in the depths of each person
there is a greater self and a core
imagination that is truly the source of
one's life.
~ Michael Meade in LIVING MYTH podcast, Episode 167, "The Second Level of Hope"