I knew! I knew!
I knew I was smart. I knew I was gifted and really good at some stuff. The problem was never about whether I acknowledged the compliments I heard or not. I did acknowledge them. Of course not every day, but majority of the time my self-esteem was good.
I acknowledged what I heard and what I discovered about myself as fact. But never as the truth.
I never accepted any of it….
I did not believe I was worthy enough to do so.
And that was the problem…
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“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?” _Marianne Williamson
There’s a difference between acknowledging something and accepting it. The first step for me was understanding a few things;
What acknowledgment of my worth means
What acceptance of my worth means
And the importance of understanding the slight difference between the two.
Acknowledgment means to admit the knowledge of to recognize the existence or fact of…
Acceptance means to believe or come to recognize something as valid or correct. It means to put confidence in, to be convinced of, to have faith in…
You can acknowledge something without accepting it. For example, I can acknowledge the fact that I have an F in Chemistry but refuse to accept it. I can also acknowledge the existence of a divine being, but not accept one. When you strip it down; to acknowledge a fact is to admit that it is real.
To accept it is to believe or own it as true.
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I do not know where I got the notion that worth was something that could be measured.
But I know the day I came to the full understanding that there was nothing it could be measured by or against.
Worth is inherent.
It is intrinsic and built-in.
It is deep-rooted and ingrained.
I cannot take it away from myself. And neither can you.
The unconditional love of God
I was born into a Christian household. Every morning after my grandma woke up, the first thing she always did was to read her Bible and pray for each one of us. We would accompany her to occasional overnights on Friday and to church on Sundays. We danced at the crusades and listened with rapt attention to the testimonies of people who’d found Grace at the hands of God. We read our Bibles and performed specials in our Sunday classes. Not only that, but we loved getting dressed in our Sunday best clothes and shoes and heading to church, skins shining with freshly applied oil. I loved it. I loved everything about it.
And I loved God.
As I grew older, I met people who loved God too. We always gathered for devotions and prayers and every day, we were taught about God and his unconditional love for us. I knew that meant God loved me no matter what. It was a fact I acknowledged as real. And at that age, it was a fact I accepted as true.
But life isn’t always so smooth sailing, is it? Beliefs change, our view of the world changes, and our view of us changes too. And when the latter occurs, it tends to almost always change how we view everything else about life. When your view of yourself changes, it can influence how you receive random acts of kindness, a look from a stranger, a helping hand, and even God’s unconditional love for you.
The older I became, the bigger my doubts grew. Not about God’s love.
But about my own worthiness to receive and accept it.
Along the path to adulthood, I made the personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. And the lessons about God’s unconditional love and mercy continued.
I knew that meant God loved me no matter what. It was a fact I acknowledged as real. But at this older age, it was a fact I no longer accepted as true.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth _Genesis 1:1
You see… God is God!
The Almighty Creator. All-seeing and all-knowing. God is… God!
And I was simply…me.
A simple girl from a simple home with simple things to offer. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t different. I hadn’t done any great feats of courage. I made mistakes. I made poor decisions. I failed. I complained. I stole tiny pieces of meat from the saucepan while grandma cooked. So why?! Why would God unconditionally love ‘me’!?
The Turning Point
(Three Years Ago)
It began as a whispering in the air.
I could see the tiny droplets of water sliding down my window. They were growing larger and falling faster. The light ‘pitter-patter’ of rain turned into wet thuds as the icy water raced to meet the roof of our tour bus. As it continued to pour, I turned around in my seat and watched my neighbor sleep.
“Miles and miles away from home. Different continents. Different people. And yet the rain still falls just the same,” I whispered as I turned back to the window, craning my neck so that I could read the signpost “Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.”
The sights. Adventure after adventure.
The huge crowds. Sold out shows. These experiences were bigger than me.
“Me…A kid from nowhere. Living this life!… Someone pinch me,” I mumbled to myself,” Why do I get to do this… How come I get to do this? This is crazy.”
Silence….
“God keeps placing opportunities in front of me… I don’t think I deserve any of them…” I whispered to myself as my finger slowly traced the raindrops clinging to the window.
“So who does?” My neighbor spoke up.
“You’re awake?”
“Who do you think deserves them?”
“What?!”
“The opportunities God keeps placing in front of you. Who do you think deserves them?”
“Uh… don’t know…wasn’t really talking to you,” I mumbled.
My neighbor’s eyes widened in mock laughter, “You mean you weren’t talking to me?” I glared.
“Hear me out,” neighbor started, “God doesn’t bless you because you’ve done ‘something’ to deserve it. It’s not because of what you did. And it’s certainly not because of how deserving or undeserving you may think you are.”
I asked a lot of people about God’s love and my worth as his child. I inquired about his unending mercy and grace. I sought out many opinions, from friends to colleagues, mentors, and preachers. I spent time really reading the word and searching my own heart. But almost every answer I was given boiled down to one thing;
That God’s love is a primary reality. It stands apart from space and time, circumstance and consequence, people and places. That God’s love is essential.
With time, I was reminded that God loved me first. First in chronology, first in importance. And until my dying breath, He would love me.
I was reminded that God’s love was not based on my feelings about me or my abilities, my goodness or badness, or even my own nature —his love is based on His nature. And the truth is, none of us truly deserve God’s love, but because of his unending mercy, a relationship with him is available to us all.
So with time, I started to really understand.
My worth wasn’t based on how I felt about myself because that changes constantly. It wasn’t based upon what I could or couldn’t do because human strength and wisdom are not permanent. It wasn’t based upon what I had or hadn’t achieved because achievements are fleeting. It wasn’t based upon the opinion of others because those vary. It wasn’t based upon my own opinions of myself either because those change too.
I realized then that,
Worth is inherent.
It is intrinsic and built-in.
It is deep-rooted and ingrained.
With small baby steps, I started working on accepting it all.
Believing that my talents were not just a fact like the nails on my fingers, but gifts that I could truly own and grow into and possibly use to maybe impact someone.
Accepting that I was beautiful. Not because of what I looked like. But because of who I was,
On the inside.
I was slowly discovering that person…on the inside. And I not only acknowledged her. I accepted her, too.
A lot of people know they’re loved. A lot of people struggle with feeling worthy of being loved.
A lot of people acknowledge they’re loved.
A lot of people struggle with accepting this love.
Not too long ago, I was one of the above people. Possibly you’re currently struggling with what I struggled with…
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You might know your strongest points, your best qualities, what you are good at. You might know it all. But how do you feel about yourself?
On days when the sun refuses to shine in your life? How do you feel about yourself?
On days when the important people in your life ignore you? How do you feel about yourself?
On days when you don’t make as much money? How do you feel about yourself?
On days when you make mistakes and fail in front of your colleagues? How do you feel about yourself?
On days when that girl/guy you have a huge crush on stands you up? How do you feel about yourself?
On days when your friends forget your birthday? How do you feel about yourself?
On days when nothing seems to be going right? How do you feel about yourself?
How do you feel about yourself? In both good and bad times?
One last question…
Who Are You?
Put aside the talents, the money, the reputation, the beauty, the externals.
Put aside your feelings about yourself. Put aside the opinions of others.
Who Are You? Really?
Answer that. Then try answering this…
If one doesn’t take the time to know and understand something, how then can they discover its innate value?
Can one know the worth or value of something they haven’t taken the time to understand and know at all?
We all know the saying, “Not all that glitters is gold.”
So take some time…
Discover who you are beneath all that ‘glitter’.
The End of Part Two
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Excerpt From The War Within Pt3 (Understanding Self Esteem and Self Worth)
“Self-esteem is what we think and feel and believe about ourselves.
Self-worth is recognizing, ‘I am greater than all of those things.’
It is a deep knowing that I am of value, that I am loveable, necessary to this life, and of incomprehensible worth regardless of what I know about myself, how I think about myself, and how I feel about myself.”
The Task: We are going to outline what does NOT determine our self-worth.
What does not or shouldn’t determine our self-worth.
[…] The War Within PartII: Learning to accept God’s Love and Mercy. […]