Low self-esteem part 2

In part one, we talked about the damage that low self-esteem can cause to oneself. Let's talk about what it does to our relationships, with God and with others.

The author of the book says that "satan uses your nagging sense of inferiority and inadequacy to isolate you. For the commonest way to cope with feelings of inferiority is to pull within yourself, to have as little contact with other people as you possibly can, and just occasionally to peek out as the rest of the world goes by."

Ouch!

He further states that low self-esteem ruins the relationship with God, because if we think that we are worthless, we call God a liar and also tell Him that He did a bad job with us....... ahem.!?

Well, I agree and I don't. I have questioned myself and God about my relationship with Him, and as bad as I think of myself, I DO know that He did not make a mistake - it might be my attitude that is wrong, but He did right. I accept Him as my creator, and I totally rely on Him to make this situation better. But maybe I am already on the road of progress.... so there is hope!?

Nonetheless, I do know that I have a ton of work to do in my relationships with my fellow earthlings. They are as faulty as I am, and as a perfectionist, it can be hard to overlook those faults, and to forgive them. And then to forgive my own! (But we talked about that already here.)

I have been hurt so many times - a few too many times too much. And every time, it leaves an open wound that takes me forever to get over. And really, now I learned from the book, that those wounds probably had never healed. And because I have been hurt, I have a hard time to trust, and to love others. So I am disobeying God's command to love one another as God did (John 15:12).

People with low self-esteem can't love others, because they are so self-absorbed in their own insecurities, that it would be too much to deal with the love somebody else might need. My cries for love and acceptance had to fail because I didn't even liked myself, how could I ask someone else to love me? Faux-pas! God wants to shine through my weaknesses, and I have been stealing His show....

So my mission is to make myself like myself! No more self-belittling!

I am learning that I am a Somebody. I count. God put me here to make His garden look beautiful!
I have something to offer this world that nobody else has. 
I am accepted by Him. I am loved by Him. He cares for Me. He enjoys seeing my progress. He wants me to grow more and more, closer to Him, to bring Him glory.
(And yes, there are (many) days where I have to say this over and over, more like a mantra to myself, to believe it and to live it! - It's a process that will not happen overnight. It takes time.) 
I need to believe it to meet everyday life. I need believe it to say that I can cope with the latest painful events in my life. That I can make baby steps forward, again. That hope did not die.

So what am I trying to do? Erasing the wrong programming, that started since my birth. The information that I have received in being dealt with as a child, as a teenager, and still as an adult, come from parents with imperfect parenting, their own failures, insecurities, wrong actions, and foremost conditional love. All those negative things need to be erased out of my mind, to be replaced with God's truth about a much more positive image of myself. Amen.

And next time, we talk more about how to correct my faulty theology.