Working to Fill an Emptiness :: My Story, Part III

I left off with a statement about considering people in terms of “good” or “bad” Christians, since “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, NKJV).

A book that really highlighted this for me is TrueFaced, which “draws a clear distinction between two very different underlying motives: my determination to please God or trust him… one results in a striving that never feels it has done enough to please him; the other results in a trust that experiences his full pleasure.”

I read the book during a time of crisis caused by my determination to please, and I realized that I can never earn God’s love or acceptance. When I looked up TrueFaced in the archives of my blog, I found this:

“People do not notice when I lose or gain weight.
My friends do not lose respect for me when I can’t make qualifying times or if I get sick sometimes.
God does not love me any less when I fail to be passionate about Him. And that brings so much freedom.”

Ever since middle school, I’ve faced low self-esteem. When I started high school, I felt friendless, and I had so much to prove. I worried about making qualifying times for cross-country and track, getting bad grades, getting sick, not being a “good” Christian, and gaining weight. All of that drove me to pour so much time and energy into myself. If I did do things for others, it was really just to look good—for approval and personal security.

And I was so tired. According to a few pages given to me by a counselor, factors that deprive us of physical, emotional and spiritual rest include, among other things:

• unrealistic expectations
• discontentment and covetousness
• preoccupation with success
• activity overload
• worry about our image
• pride.

These all stem from low self-esteem, because people who don’t feel good about themselves spend tremendous energy trying to attain a feeling of self-worth.

The Importance of Self-Love and Self-Esteem

Culture Shock by Myron Loss, before addressing common missionary problems, includes an entire chapter dedicated to the importance of self-love and self-esteem.

• Self-love is “an appreciation for the worth of oneself as a person made in the image of God.”

• Self-esteem is “the extent to which the individual believes himself capable, significant, successful and worthy.” In short, it’s when “you’re glad you’re you” (36).

What’s wrong? The author says that man is innately inadequate: he can never measure up to what he should have been:

“Since Adam, the primary force that has throbbed at the heart of men is the fear of inadequacy, rejection and alienation. Sin is more perverse and deep-seated than is commonly believed. It is an element present not only in a man’s actions and thoughts, but it is ingrained in his psychological makeup. It results in a self-condemnation of the whole soul, making him unable to love himself or others. Self-love, which can only come as a result of forgiveness and acceptance by God, is necessary in order to be a healthy person” (Loss 33).

Divine Intervention

Loss points the way out: there is Divine intervention: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). Loss says, “If we judge the value of any object by the price that is paid for it, then it becomes evident that man is highly valued by God” (34).

“My need for security demands that I be unconditionally loved, accepted, and cared for, now and forever. God has seen me at my worst and still loved me to the point of giving His life for me. That kind of love I can never lose. I am completely acceptable to Him regardless of my behavior. I am under no pressure to earn or keep His love. My acceptability to God depends only on Jesus’ acceptability to God and on the fact that Jesus’ death was counted as full payment for my sins.” Dr. Larry Crabb (Loss 35)

In Christ, I am a dearly loved child of God (Colossians 3:12). When I was lamenting my lack of something or other, my dad said it best: “Don’t talk about my daughter that way.”

Many people, however, do not feel unconditionally loved, accepted, and cared for by God or anybody.

It is out of this void that I have made most of my mistakes. Take love as an example (love in the attraction/romance sense). I recently realized a pattern to my high school relationships:

1. They are a distraction from the tedious and painful parts of life, like mind-numbing amounts of homework and school. But diversion is not a good reason to attempt dating.
2. I start relationships when I really just want a better friendship. That is, when I am lonely. Loneliness is a thirst that requires more than water; it is the hunger pang of an empty heart, and I have known this all too well. So when I examine the reason I have ever been attracted to anyone, it is usually out of some degree of loneliness. And then when my needs as a friend are satisfied, I’m satisfied. I never wanted anything more, which contributed to the downfall of my first and only dating relationship. (If only I had realized that earlier.) I once told that person, months before we dated: “…You saw me at my worst and still loved me.” It is God, however, who truly deserves that sentiment.

Me, performing a puppet skit during the JAARS youth group mini-missions trip, a worthwhile weekend of spending energy towards something greater than myself.

What else contributes to low or high self-esteem?

My freshman year of high school, I became absorbed in making myself “worthy” and “successful.” Now I know why: self-esteem is the measured by the distance between who someone is and who they want to be. If one is discontent with herself and her life, every action will be marked with self-rejection and disappointment. She will spend energy on making herself feel better and will have little left over for loving and caring for other people (Loss 40). That was me at one time.

To some extent, that feeling is still present. I constantly feel stretched to the limit. There is honestly not one more responsibility or activity I could take on right now—not that I need to. My life has no margin or room to breathe, and I feel like I’m just waiting for the end of all this work. That is why I wrote “Breathe,” to remind myself of my story, and of my promised refuge in Christ.

I want to live in the present, but I feel like I’m living for the future: I am making grades and taking tests for college, preparing for a career, not dating—I don’t want to live like everything begins in two years when I graduate. My life is now, not in the far-off, unseen future.

“When we ‘get there,’ when we have at last ‘arrived,’ then we will accept ourselves. But we never seem to make it” (Loss 40).

So stop searching; stop to trying to muster up all your goodness and energy. It’s fruitless.

In the Way there is direction, in the Truth there is wisdom, and in the Life there is purpose. That Way/Truth/Life is Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

On that note, next week I will post my friend Chris’s poem for the Slam. I think it complements what I’m trying to communicate.

Check it out for yourself…

Loss, Myron. Culture Shock. Winona Lake, Indiana: Life and Light, 1983. Print.

Thrall, Bill, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. TrueFaced. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004. Print.

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