The Surprising Secret to Self-Esteem {Be Delighted}

by: Stephanie Tait

It seems impossible in this day in age to be female and to be somehow unscathed by self doubt, self depravation, negative body image, negative self talk, fear of judgement, fear of being unloved… the list goes on. And since I myself happen to be one of these humans of the feminine variety, I’m going to put myself squarely in this category and admit to sharing in these same struggles.

No – let’s get real here. I don’t want this to stop short and just be one of those surface level confessions: you know, the kind where I share juuuussst enough so you can applaud me for my “bravery” or my “vulnerability,” but all the while ensure my real filth is hidden safely in the closet away from prying eyes. No, if I’m being truly authentic with you girls, the word “struggles” doesn’t even being to cover it. More appropriate wordage would be something along the lines of crushing burden perhaps, or maybe chains, or even more aptly I would use prison. In fact I’m guessing the Bible would probably use the word stronghold to describe the constant, all encompassing, and seemingly unconquerable struggle to escape the scathing self hatred that has plagued me for decades. Now I could spend pages and pages writing about where it began or what “caused” it, but I wont – most simply because ladies, we all have something. My story may not be your story, and that doesn’t change the point of what I want to share here. So leaving the gritty details aside, let’s just say that I looked in the mirror each and every day and prayed that somehow, in someway, I could just be someone else, anyone else, and not have to be THIS anymore. That’s the real ugly truth y’all – I didn’t just struggle with myself, I hated myself.

When I was finally ready to confront my personal demons and tackle self loathing head on, I threw myself into reading all number of advice on conquering my issue once and for all. None of it fixed the problem. So I tried all manner of counseling and personal development. I devoted real time and energy into trying to figure out how I could finally learn to love myself, or somehow covert myself into a person I would see as worthy of loving, and still nothing was working. No matter how hard I tried, I came back to the same issues time and time again. I was trapped in a vicious cycle and no matter how much I dedicated myself to conquering it, my efforts just ended in failure, and that very failure would only serve as more evidence in the damning list of reasons I held against myself to prove my own worthlessness. It was an unbeatable cycle on endless repeat.

Until…

Can we just pause to take in the glory of that small and simple word? Until. No matter what’s been written in the story so far, until heralds the change to come. Until says “but wait, it’s not over yet!” Until is the road sign after a seemingly endless journey, telling you the destination you almost gave up on finding is just up ahead after all. And my until was the moment that a supremely loving and incredibly personal God chose to reach down into the midst of my mess and speak a holy wisdom over the noise of any other “advice” or “counsel” I had received. He rocked my world with a radical truth that changed everything, and yet was startlingly raw in its simplicity.

Ladies, the crazy and world shaking and utterly counter cultural truth is this:

The answer to the problem self hatred is NOT to learn to love yourself. Nope. Not even a little bit. In fact, the gospel never calls us to love ourselves. Quite the contrary. The secret to overcoming self hatred entirely? It’s to make your constant aim to stop thinking about yourself, and to learn to love on others. Take a moment to let that really settle in, because it’s radical and it’s a bitter pill to swallow when you get that first taste. Underneath the self hatred, underneath the surface level appearance that we struggle to care about ourselves, there lies the startling truth that in fact we think about ourselves too much. Would you believe it if I told you the real sin of self hatred is pride?

Take a look at Isaiah 45:9-12 (NLT)
9 
“What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator.
    Does a clay pot argue with its maker?
Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying,
    ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’
Does the pot exclaim,
    ‘How clumsy can you be?’
10 
How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said to its father,
    ‘Why was I born?’
or if it said to its mother,
    ‘Why did you make me this way?’”
11 
This is what the Lord says—
    the Holy One of Israel and your Creator:
“Do you question what I do for my children?
    Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?

As cliche as it may sound, God made you ladies, and “God don’t make no junk.” How prideful we are when we think we can improve upon His creation. How insulting to our Creator to hate the thing He made in His very image. “What sorrow awaits” us when we get so focused on ourselves that we dare to question the work of the most Holy of hands.

And as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding girls. The freedom from my bondage has been as miraculous as it’s been swift. The secret to conquering self hatred has been deceivingly simple all along – to spend so much time focused on loving others that there simply isn’t time left to overly focus on myself. I want to be so busy doing the work of Jesus that there simply isn’t time left for much else. I want us all to embrace the ultimate freedom of dying completely to self so that we can live solely for Christ. I want us to become Love so tangibly and so completely that we can’t help but look at ourselves in the mirror each morning and just see Jesus shining back out. It’s completely impossible to hate yourself, sweet girls, when your identify becomes so deeply aligned with personifying His Love that your very person becomes inseparably intertwined with His . So let go of the lie of learning to love yourself, dedicate yourself to the work of authentically and radically loving others, and you will be amazed at how quickly you’ll see those strongholds fall.