Self-Worth... Self-Esteem...Confidence. These are words I dread, or feel like I will never fully understand. When we are little girls we grow up with pure and natural confidence. I can (unbelievably) remember a time when I would prance around our living room to the Mannheim Steamroller song, ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’ and sing at the top of my lungs as if I was Beyoncé headlining at the SuperBowl!
Self-Worth... Self-Esteem...Confidence. These are words I dread...
Where did that confidence go? Somewhere between the age of 9-12 I lost all of my God-given natural self-confidence. Was it when I began to see my older teenage peers constantly pulling at their clothes and fixing their hair, thinking to myself...”If they don’t think themselves beautiful...then what do they think of me...?”
Was it when I had my first crush on a boy who laughed at me because I was many years his junior and not even a woman yet? Or was it when my brother’s friends called me the ‘Hepher’ because I played a cow that year in the Christmas play? I can’t really place my finger on the exact moment, or perhaps it wasn’t a moment. Perhaps it was a series of societal pressures, kids that can be cruel, magazines & tv women that I always seemed to notice ‘looked’ a certain way.
I wasn’t taught Self-Condifence in church. In fact I can remember all throughout my teenage years being ashamed if I felt confident at all. I don’t believe they meant for us to feel that way, but when you are consistently told that the way you dress, the way you act, causes men to sin... you start of gain a complex (or at least I did).
Don’t get me wrong. Modesty is so important to me. There was a time in my life that I threw it out the window & I wish that I hadn’t because the attention I received was un-godly and undignified. However, as a young impressionable teenager I wish that I had peers to live & to show me where it says in the Bible, “For you formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you, When I was made in secret And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they are all written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” -Psalms 139:13-16.
Rather than Godly modesty, beauty & confidence. I observed gossip, backstabbing, girls hiding who they were from the world in case someone noticed their pain. Sexual immoralities, lust & hidden contempt for the rules of the church.
Perhaps instead of telling young women what they can or can’t wear we should be focusing on making sure they have a relationship with God, & are filled with the Holy Spirit. Perhaps they should be working together in small groups & bible studies so they don’t have time to steal each other’s boyfriends...?
Did you know that “A recent LifeWay study found that only 32 percent of Americans who “attend a Protestant church regularly say they read the Bible personally every day.” Evangelical Protestants faired a little better (36 percent), but not much. As Albert Mohler put it, “The scandal of biblical illiteracy [is] our problem.” I guarantee you outward modesty will come with an inward change of the heart & “the heart cannot love what the mind does not know.”
How can we love ourselves if we don’t love Jesus, our Creator? How can we love Jesus fully without knowing WHO He is?
I was so guilty of this. I thought I got enough Bible because I was in church so often growing up. I didn’t think I needed to read it everyday like the little song goes..”read your Bible, pray everyday & you’ll grow, grow, grow.” The reverse of that song was the truth in my life...I just couldn’t see it until it was too late. “Neglect your Bible, forget to pray & you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink...” I shrank into my inward thoughts, anxieties, battles in my mind & problems I couldn’t bring myself to talk about openly with anyone.
I lost the battle for self-confidence because I wasn’t fighting the war anymore. I had left the battlegrounds & given in to the enemy’s lies. Without a savings account full of scriptures to draw from in my weakest moments I was empty & therefore couldn’t give answers to my peers.
I want to encourage you today, don’t doubt the way God made you or what God gave you. Feast on His Word & when Satan tries to tell you that your not good enough. That you’re a failure. That you aren’t smart enough...God says, “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay.” -Romans 9:20.
The Bible also says, “And we know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” -Romans 8:28.
WE ARE fearfully & wonderfully made, & it’s okay to love yourself because you love the God of all Creation who loved you before you were formed. He knew you & He called you to His purpose! No matter your stage in life, if you are like me, you need reminding sometimes that YOU ARE LOVED!
Until next time,
Ranessa H