Yeah those photos pretty accurately show what I was like as a child (sorry about that Mom and Dad), but sometimes looking back is not always entertaining.
A few years ago amidst a counseling session, I was asked to think back to when it was that I first started to wrestle with my self-worth and self-image. When did I notice it starting to affect me and be a hindering problem? It’s unfortunately very easy for me to remember how long ago it all started because it is also one of my earliest memories.
I told a story about myself in first grade that showed that even at such a young age, I was already striving to change things about my appearance. It was one day at school, in the cafeteria lunch line. I was in line with a friend, and it was one of the few days kids were excited to eat school cafeteria food because chocolate cake was being served. If you know me at all, you know that from the day I was born I have had a deep love affair with chocolate. But I didn’t take a piece of cake that day, and when my friend turned to me to ask why, I responded with “well my legs are just too big for me to be able to eat that.” I was five years old. WHAT? I hurt for that little girl who had already begun to so deeply believe the lies about herself that even at such a young age could no longer enjoy life to the fullest without questioning her worth. Whether you’re five or fifty-five, these thoughts are an all too common occurrence for women.
As young girls we are fed the message of worth based on what we can achieve, whether that be academically, corporately, physically, or relationally. This lays a foundation in our lives to never be satisfied with who the Lord made us to be. There’s always something we need to fix, gain, or lose and only then will we reach a happiness that always seems to be just out of reach.
When I realized that I really couldn’t remember a time before I thought those things about myself, one of the hardest parts was that it made me feel hopeless to ever see a change in the future. That was how it always had been, so experience told me that it was how it was always going to be. I would go through the motions of trying to talk through these thoughts and emotions, but really I didn’t expect anything to truly improve. I knew that wasn’t a good viewpoint, but had just accepted it as reality, it was just something I would have to carry with me so I better get used to it.
But Praise the Lord that is NOT reality and is untrue, even though in the middle of the struggle I would never have believed someone telling me differently. So I get that these words might be equally difficult to believe for anyone currently unable to see a light at the end of the tunnel of their struggle. I wish I could say that there’s an easy answer, or a quick answer, but I said I would be completely honest. There will be days where it’s just easier to believe the lies about yourself that you’ve allowed to be repeated over and over in your head because the status quo is comfortable and deceivingly comfortable.
But why would I think the best path to healing is to repeatedly reopen wounds, which He wants to heal with truth, by returning to the harsh words and lies that wounded in the first place?
Psalm 25:5 Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
I would read verses like this and think that I understood what trust looked like because I could say I trusted Him with my future, my dreams, and the tangible aspects of my life. But what I couldn’t see at the time was that I had totally missed the fact that I was refusing to trust what He said about ME and who I was, in favor of accepting what the world said about me and trusting that was what was true. I also would not trust that He cared enough about what I thought as my self-centered issues because they were minor compared to other peoples’ suffering. But the truth is that He did and does care. He desires for each of us to see ourselves how He does, no matter what we’ve done or told ourselves. What I couldn’t see back when I was in a place of accepting my fate to struggle was that even when I decide to give up hope, He never does. When I decide I’m not worthy, He has already declared me worth fight for and worth loving.
There is hope for the future no matter how hard that might be to believe right now and I remember exactly how that felt. You are not alone in feeling that way if you are. He will see you through, you will make it. It may not be tomorrow, next week, or even next year, but it will not always be this way. No matter how hard we try to shut ourselves off from it and resist, there is hope unimaginable and inescapable. So even if right now it seems impossible to believe, things will not always be this way, no matter what your struggle may be.
Psalm 39:7 And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.
