Enough of Not Being Enough

I am not pretty enough. I am not skinny enough. I am not tall enough. I am not a good enough parent. I am not a good enough Christian. These are all statements that I have used so many times in my life. I can recall using a few of these statements all throughout my life.

I used to believe that as an adult I would grow up to have a healthier self-esteem, but unfortunately I was wrong. As an adult preparing to have my first child I thought to myself, finally I will feel enough because this little person will rely on me more than anyone else in the world and guess what, again I was wrong. I have had different philosophies and ideas on what could possibly help me have a higher self-esteem and as it would be expected, none of them worked like I thought they would.

A serious problem that I have is I care way too much about what other people think about me. I know that I am a great person with a really kind heart, the person people meet and get to know are all 100% genuine and I love who I am as a person. However, looking into a mirror I can’t help but continue to find reasons staring back at me that I perceive to be hideous. My eyebrows are too thick, this adult woman acne is scarring my face, and no make up is ever enough to hide the rounder face that has taken form since having children and gaining those hard to lose pounds.

Unfortunately, a huge problem with people and their low self-esteem problems is that most people are easily impacted positively or negatively by the opinions of others. People give others way too much authority in their lives and that is the first major issue that needs to be improved. People are so quick to blame the media or childhood traumas as a reason to not love themselves but the judgment, guilt, shame, and conviction others take it upon themselves to put on people also contribute a role as into why the self-esteem issues linger on in a person’s life.

We all struggle with having insecurities and not considering ourselves to be enough for whomever and whatever reason. When others take it upon themselves to point those insecurities out or contribute opinions and say things without thinking about how the other person will be impacted by it, they kick a door wide open in a person’s life to sink deeper and deeper into a lack of love for themselves. It isn’t what people say that cause the initial problem in a person’s feelings, it’s the idea that when others see what we see that we don’t’ love about ourselves, it can serve as proof of our flaws and can really send us into a further low self-esteem.

 Christians are guilty of influencing others to not love themselves enough as well. Both religious Christians and those who have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ all have been guilty of influencing a person’s self esteem and not always for the better. We come from a cultural generation where many Biblical Doctrines have been passed down, re-worded, and manipulated for personal usage and because of this; there have been different teachings of what is within the rights of people towards one another.

Whether it be using their voice to convict others or to ensure they know when someone is making a mistake or is in the wrong doing, or it’s something as simple as choosing to not have anything to do with someone because they live their lifestyle in a way that doesn’t align with the Biblical perceptions of the Religious Christian. This has become a terrible habit in Christianity and although we are imperfect and flawed, it is something that Christians need to pray to evolve from.

There needs to come a time where Christians realize that what we say about or to others can seriously affect them and how they love themselves or not. By taking accountability in our actions and choosing to not contribute to society in this way, together we can improve the social and cultural epidemic of low self esteem by supporting others instead of tearing each other down.

It has become imbedded into our culture that our daily routine should consist of bathing with smell good soaps and frizz taming shampoo and conditioner, looking in a mirror for an hour in order to style our hair and make up with the intention of creating a falsified image of ourselves, one that is perceived to be more accepted and loveable by others in our lives.

Our culture has become so materialistic instead of focusing on who people for who they are and escaping from the concentration of what they do what their lives. When we as ladies doll ourselves up each day and when young men out there spend their times in a gym thinking that most girls want someone with muscle, it creates an illusion that they are better and more worthy people to be around because of those things.

This is an unfortunate truth about our culture, as we know it today, we have become a generation absolutely obsessed with using things and objects to amplify who we are in the eyes of others. It’s why the struggle with a low self-esteem is so hard to improve, because so many people have the idea that its about what they have and what they can do with themselves that makes other people like them instead of realizing it’s about the person they are inside and releasing themselves of the guilt and shame that is locked up inside for whatever purpose.

Between oppression and materialism, it would seem that the problem of low self-esteem wouldn’t stand a chance to grow and improve to the point where people are beginning to love themselves better, however, there is a solution.

In order for a person to escape from the idea that the things they have and wear will improve the way people see them, they must allow themselves to become vulnerable and genuinely trust what God says about them. He loves each and every one of us unconditionally. We have all heard of what God says about His creation of mankind in the Book of Genesis, that we were made perfect and of His image.

One would think that this is enough to feel confident about them and consider themselves to be beautiful, but we all know that it isn’t as simple as that. Now I don’t want to go through the Bible and point out each scripture that talks about loving you because I don’t want to send you into snooze fest thinking that I am one of those religious / non relational Christians.

What I can tell you is that you can find your ultimate worth in the words of John 3:16, For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son to pay for the sins of mankind so that people could live with Eternal Life. It’s the verse that we all know and love, the one we can recite with our eyes closed and in multiple languages if multi-lingual.

However, to look at it from a grander scale, that is when a person can find their worth through humility. God saw all of the mistakes and evil that humanity entailed, by choice people left and right were disobeying God knowingly and continued to do it even after learning of His Commandments and expectations of us. There was so much chaos to the point where God called for Oppression to take place within the world that led to extreme distress.

Although all of this occurred as it does today, God loved His creation so genuinely and passionately that He created a solution so that we could receive forgiveness and be reunited with Him for eternity.

God created Jesus Christ, the perfect man to ever walk the earth that was nailed on a cross and crucified for the entire world to see. The reason is because God sent Jesus to Earth to die to pay for our sins so that we would not be eternally separated. Think about that for a second, if we were not beautiful, worthy, or enough in our eyes, God would have left us with the reality of spending eternity in Hell; instead, He provided the solution to prevent that from happening. I’m not quite sure if anyone I know would sacrifice their own child who has flesh and blood like all of us in order to pay for the sins of mankind.

When one can grasp the idea that we are worthy enough that much, it can begin the trail of a mindset that says “hey, God says I am enough and worthy and that is all that matters”. This is the milestone that humanity today needs to reach and as Christians we shall pray for our culture to get there. If not, the epidemic of low self esteem verses loving yourself will continue to serve as a weight within our culture.