What's Wrong With Me?

So many of us feel that the above question should read – What’s right with me? Feeling this way about ourselves so often starts when we are small children and for each of us it’s a different story, a different event that marked the start of the changes of how we viewed ourselves. Yet when all those stories are looked at, the similarities are frightening.  For many it was a parent or sibling who would tell us we were stupid, ugly, overweight. Our siblings were smarter, little Johnny down the road got better grades. Comparisons would be drawn between ourselves and others by thoughtless, but often well-meaning older family members, teachers, or family friends.  From childhood, for the majority of us, our self esteem gets whittled away. So often it is done by people who really love you and who had absolutely no idea that their words were hurtful.  Then puberty hits and we are the ones with the acne, breasts that are too big or too small, and for guys it’s voices that still squeak whilst others around you have developed a husky, manly baritone! And so the erosion of our self worth continues.  Even when all those adolescent hurdles have been reached and we are now a fully blossomed adult, guess what, we carry those burdens with us.  For some reason, the self deprecating cycle that we have fallen into continues and although no one else may be comparing us to others, society now does it.  Buy this soap and you too can look like the gorgeous woman on the wrapper.  Clothing manufacturer’s have sizes that seem to fit only the models and for the rest of us, its an on-going battle to find something that’s the right length, width, colour, whatever. As we stand struggling in and out of garments in change-rooms filled with distorted mirrors, despair sets in and away we go again, I’m too tall, short, fat, thin. My heads too big, my feet too small, arms too flabby, knees too wobbly yada yada yada!! What never fails to amaze me is how we can listen to all this nonsense from ourselves and not get heartily sick of it.   The fact is, we don’t have to keep listening to it.  We can move on from our childhood hurts and we can come to love ourselves.  Stick with me and I’ll show you how you can live a life of inner freedom and contentment – it’s your choice!

Loving Yourself the way God Intended

Psalm 139 vs 13 – 16
For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully
And wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
When I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together
In the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
Were written in your book
Before one of them came to be.

One of the hardest things for us to accept is that God loves us just as we are – 100%. He does not attach conditions to his love. He does not say “if you were taller, shorter, cleverer, fatter, thinner, more talented etc., “ then He could love you more! So if God, our Creator, the one who made this beautiful planet and hung the stars in the sky, doesn’t do that, then why do we? Why do we criticize and condemn, judge and belittle ourselves. And if we are doing it to ourselves, we invariably are doing it to others. We may not be as harsh on others as we are on ourselves, but we still do it! If we are doing it to ourselves and others, are we not also doing it to God? Aren’t we, in effect telling God that He messed up! Aren’t we saying “Well God you did a great job on Table Mountain and the Kingfisher and Sandra Bullock, but You really messed up with me! God doesn’t mess up! He does everything perfectly and we, each and every one of us are His perfect creation. We all come with a designer label attached that says: Lovingly crafted by the hands of the Creator”.

We may mess up and ruin ourselves with bad habits and toxic behaviour, but not God. And although God may be unhappy with some of our choices, He still loves us 100%. If you are a parent, you know exactly what I mean! There are times when you could throttle your kids (especially when they are in their teens!) but you still love them.

Now God commands us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves! A very hard command, many of us just take note of the loving our neighbours part of the command and rush around being everyone’s best friend, helping the underprivileged, giving giving giving! But how many of those people pay any attention to themselves. In fact they use it as an excuse to ignore their own health and well being. And the problem is, that these dear people, who are so loving and generous with their time and efforts often become bitter and wonder why they never get any “loving” back! It is simply because they do not love themselves. They feel that if they give of themselves constantly some of that loving generosity will come back to them but they never quite understand the truth in the saying “You teach others to treat you the way you treat yourself.” Or, if these people with such low self esteem are loved and appreciated by others, they don’t see it, or accept it! They feel that people are just being ‘nice’ but are insincere. Because they don’t love themselves they are incapable of accepting love from others.
Please do not misunderstand me, I am not speaking about loving yourself in a narcissistic, self-centered way. That is destructive. What I am talking about is seeing yourself in a Godly way. Accepting yourself as “lovingly, individually crafted.” Taking care of yourself physically, spiritually and emotionally. It means not seeing yourself as insignificant compared to others because they have more talents or are better looking than you. God has created each one of us ON PURPOSE! Which means that, in your uniqueness, He has something for you to do!. As a follower of Christ we are all part of the “Body” of Christ – whether we are the vocal chords or the eardrum, the pinky finger or the foot we are all necessary.

When I Was a Child....

For several years now I have felt the urge to write about the problems that we encounter in our lives due to a poor self-esteem.  I have no doubt in my mind that our self-esteem issues stem from childhood.  In my case it was a matter of an acne outbreak at the age of 11 years. This horrible affliction lasted until I was 21 years old and never let up, not once in the ten years that I bore the burden. I still carry the scars - both physically and mentally.  Now I know that there are many people out there who have suffered far more than I have - people who were beaten or raped as children, people who were born with physical deformities that nothing can remove and people who never knew the love experienced in a happy home.

That however, is exactly my point! That something as temporary and relatively small as acne can so affect our self-esteem that we carry around the burden for many, many years.  Which is exactly what I did. I believed not only that I was ugly, but that I was unlovable and that anyone who said they cared about me probably had some ulterior motive.

I still battle with self-esteem issues, but knowing that God loves me, just as I am, and that He created me, just as I am to fulfill His purposes for my life, gives me the courage to tell that little voice of self-doubt to leave me alone. That I am God's precious child and that I will not waste one more moment of my life allowing negativity to ruin the joy that life has for me.

I hope that you will join me on my journey as I attempt to break down the barriers that hold so many of us back.  The fears and phobias that hold us prisoner and prevent us from being all that God has designed us to be.