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by Jacob P. Heerema, B.D.
Kris doesn't really think very much of herself. I could tell it
right away. She didn't smile when I first met her on the unit at Pine
Rest. In fact, she didn't smile much for the first several days. She was
a real loner. In getting to know her better, I began to understand why
she looked so sad. Life had not been easy for Kris. Her parents divorced
when she was only three. Kris seldom saw her dad since the divorce because
he moved out of state. She had a vivid memory of bad events...lots of
punishments from her mother. Then her mother remarried and Kris had to
deal with her stepfather.
She was never able to accept this man, but considered him an intruder.
So there was fighting, yelling, and abuse. She carries deep scars from
the sexual abuse perpetrated by her step-brother which began when she
was only twelve and lasted several years. She finally decided that the
only way to survive was to run. She ran from her own home, and then ran
from several foster homes as well.
As I listened to her story, I could better understand why she thought
so little of herself and why she had difficulty trusting anyone. I asked
Kris if she had a favorite Bible story. She thought for a minute, and
then said, "Yes. I like the story of David and Goliath." When
I asked her why she chose that story, she explained that David was really
a nobody, but God looked at him and thought he might become a somebody.
Then she added, "And I know that I'm really a nobody, but God may
just be thinking that someday I'll become a somebody, too."
Kris is a person imprisoned by low self- esteem.
I've known Tara for a long time. She was adopted by friends of ours who
gave her lots of love and attention. They encouraged her to name and nurture
her gifts, and they honored her by respecting her right to think and to
participate in family decision-making. They even gave her space to disagree
with them at times. Tara has always had enough friends to be a happy person.
I ran into Tara a few years ago when she was about to begin college.
I asked her about her college and career goals. She said she was planning
to major in conservation and forestry. I then asked her where she hoped
to work after completing this program, and she said without hesitation,
"My long range goal is to become the Secretary of the Interior."
Tara is a person set free by positive self- esteem.
Kris and Tara are real persons. But how different they are from one another.
Kris doesn't think well of herself at all. She has a very low sense of
self-esteem, and that's unhealthy. Tara, on the other hand, is
basically quite pleased with herself. This makes her a happy, self-confident
person with positive self-esteem, and that's healthy.
What is self-esteem anyway?
Self-esteem is the evaluation individuals make and customarily maintain
about themselves. It is the personal judgment we make of our worthiness
as persons. It indicates the extent to which we believe ourselves to be
significant, capable, and successful. At times, we may have very good
feelings about ourselves, and then at other times, we can be negative
and quite discouraged about ourselves. Yet we all tend to develop a fairly
consistent level of self-esteem, which plays a significant role in our
everyday living.
Self-esteem, then, is how we feel about our self-concept. We begin building
our self-concept from the first day we are born. This concept grows out
of the messages we receive from others. We all live with a kind of inner,
secret picture of who we really are. We are constantly asking questions
like:
What am I like? How do others perceive me? Do other people consider me
worthy of their attention and love? Do they like being with me? Am I lovable
or un-lovable? How does God view me?
We are continually asking these questions and recording the answers we
believe others are sending. It is the way we perceive the answers
that is how we record them for our future use. Out of that on-going process
of asking these questions and sorting through the answers we receive,
we form our self-concept.
At the same time, we are also gradually constructing a picture of the
person we would really like to be. This "ideal self' is the person
we feel we really would like to be. When we bring together these two sets
of messages (the messages about who I think I really am and the
messages about who I think I really should be) we have to respond
to the difference. For all of us there is a gap between the "real
me" and the "ideal me." How we feel about the "real
me" and how we deal with this gap determines our level of self-esteem.
David E. Carlson, in his book Counseling and Self-Esteem, offers
this equation to explain how we can establish our level of self-esteem:
SE = EI - RS
He suggests that people's self-esteem is formed by comparing their ego
self (EI) with their real self (RS). Here again we meet the
idea that our self-esteem emerges out of this on-going process, within
our own minds, of the comparisons we continue to make between the person
we feel we ought to be and the kind of person we believe we really are.
Kris is a teenager who remembers all the messages (direct and indirect)
telling her she is not worth much. She believes she is a troublemaker,
that she is mean, ugly, unworthy, and bad. She would like to be a kind,
lovable member of a happy family. She feels bad about the difference between
her real self and her ideal self. So she lives with low, or negative,
self-esteem.
Tara, on the other hand, has recorded lots of accepting and affirming
messages about herself. Even though she still has problems she wants to
work on, she basically feels good about herself. She lives with a high,
or positive, sense of self-esteem.
I believe God wants people to live with a clear sense of positive self-esteem.
For this to happen, people need to be assured they are lovable and they
are loved from the moment they are born. The message of acceptance and
love is absolutely basic to building positive self-esteem. Think of all
the people who may be sending us messages throughout our lives:
- grandparents
- employers
- children
- baby sitters parents
- neighbors
- spouse
- teachers
- brothers
- pastors
- sisters
- friends
- supervisors
- counselors
If the messages we receive frequently assure us we are worthy, respected,
and loved, we will probably develop a positive self-concept. This opens
the door for the growth of healthy self-esteem. How important it is for
these messages to bring a steady message of love! And when that's being
done, God's message of love is being brought in a convincing way. Incidentally,
that's why God is not included merely as one more "messenger"
here. God's message is communicated through all of the "agents"
listed above.
What is the message the Lord wants all of God's people to hear? This
question can be answered by remembering that we are invited to live as
children in God's loving family. We were created in God's image, and we're
invited to live with one another and with God. Sin becomes a barrier to
that fellowship, but God breaks down that barrier through Jesus' death.
God grants us full pardon and accepts us like the waiting father welcomes
the prodigal son home in the parable Jesus taught (Luke 15:11-32). We
are assured that God will always love us unconditionally and will
empower us to live as productive members of God's family.
All of God's children need to hear this message every day of their lives.
Neal Plantinga emphasized this in an article he wrote on self-esteem in
Insight magazine entitled "For Royal Children Only."
We are God's royal children, and that provides a solid base for positive
self-esteem.
Why is it, then, that so many Christians seem to struggle with a prevailing
sense of low self-esteem? In the first place, many of us misunderstand
the call to humility. Perhaps we have been so concerned about avoiding
the sin of pride we have left little room to claim the benefits of God's
declaration about the creation: "Behold, my world is very good."
The late Dr. Anthony Hoekema, author of challenging book A Christian
Looks at Himself, loved to tell the story of a young boy who built
a model sailboat, painted it, and with eager pride went to a nearby lake
to sail it. In his excitement, he let go of the string and the little
boat drifted far away from shore. He went home dejected. A few days later
his mother took him to town, and they visited a used toy store where he
recognized his sailboat on display in the window. He begged his mother
to purchase it for him, which she did. When he finally held the sailboat
in his hands again, he looked at his mother, and said, "Mom! It's
twice mine! First I made it, and now I bought it!"
And that's God declaration about us, too, but we often doubt it. Christian
humility reminds us that we are unworthy of God's love, but not worthless.
Royal children should never forget their birthright.
Secondly, our tendency to live with low self-esteem may be tied to the
fact that, unfortunately, all of us receive mixed messages, even from
those who intend to express love and support. As author Alice Miller points
out in her book Prisoners of Childhood, none of us was born to
angels. Even the best of parents sometimes fail to communicate loving
acceptance.
You may remember a time when your best childhood friend sent you a thoughtless
or perhaps even a cruel message. You've probably recorded the pain of
a one-time clash you had with a neighbor that generated more heat than
light. We may find it easier to forgive than to forget these life-squeezing
experiences that still haunt us. A major put-down in the past by someone
whose approval we coveted may still significantly shrink our sense of
self-worth in the present.
In the third place, positive self-esteem can also be seriously challenged
by what our culture values. Craig W. Ellison wrote an article on how we
can help children develop healthy self-esteem (cf. Eternity, May
1978, pp.27 ff.). He identified three criteria that are inappropriately
used in our society as norms for popularity and success: appearance, achievement,
and acquisition.
Appearance
Think of how often physical features are used as the basis for acceptance.
Ordinary persons look with envy at our movie stars and TV personalities
and often feel inadequate and worthless because they don't consider
themselves to be good-looking enough.
Achievement
How easy it is for parents and teachers to base acceptance on excellence
rather than on effort. Children learn early that their worth is determined
by what they are able to do, rather than on who they are. Star quarterbacks,
Interlochen-trained pianists, and valedictorians are feted as outstanding
people, while millions of persons living un-advertised lives are underrated
in our hero-hungry world.
Acquisition
Special honors are often conferred on those who have accumulated cash,
CDs, condominiums, and corporations, while those who hold little of
this world's good are underrated and even overlooked.
In a subtle way, appearance, achievement, and acquisition become points
of comparison, leading many of us to live with low self-esteem. It's essential
for all of us to recognize these comparisons are not only unhealthy and
inappropriate, but completely unacceptable. Each one of us has
been created to be the unique and special royal child God intends for
us to be. And God says about each one of us, "I made you. I bought
you. I love you."
Finally, I suspect that--at times-- people may consciously choose low
self-esteem to avoid the risks of living with positive self-esteem. It
can be frightening to say, "I claim my royal lineage and I believe
I am empowered to be a uniquely whole person in this broken world."
Paradoxically, self-confident living can be scary. We may be tempted
to crawl into a quiet comer and relinquish our rights as royal children.
Could it be that this fear of freedom and fear of failure really masks
a subtle pride that renders us weak and worried? It's like the person
who refuses to play the piano for choir rehearsals for fear of missing
a few notes.
Arden Ruth Post wrote a fine article in the January 1986 Christian
Home and School entitled "I Am Lovable and Capable." In
the article, she describes students as either "success strivers"
or "failure avoiders."
Maybe it's time for all of us to move out with holy boldness, believing
that the tasks before us are never greater than the power behind us. We
can take the risks of living as "success strivers" because our
self-confidence is a product of taking God--not ourselves--seriously.
There's a distinction between unhealthy self-love and healthy self-esteem.
It is important to remember the Bible does not command self-love, but
rather assumes it. Jesus challenges people trapped by self-love. He confronts
those who are preoccupied with protecting their own interests and preserving
their own lives. He teaches that if you really want to save your life,
you should be willing to lose it. Unhealthy self-love imprisons a person
in the shrunken world of personal safety and survival. Healthy self-esteem
frees one to move beyond one's own interests and to give oneself in service
for others.
Psychologist David Meyers, faculty member at Hope College, Holland, Michigan,
suggests that most people probably struggle not so much with low self-esteem,
but rather with an inflated sense of self-esteem. He suggests this subtle
self-centeredness can be seen in a basketball player's anger at the coach
for sending his teammates out to play while he remains on the bench. Our
disappointment at being passed over for promotion when someone else is
chosen may reflect our proud opinion that we are really the better qualified
candidate. Self-love is always a subtle pitfall. Healthy self-esteem calls
for courageous self-confidence while avoiding the entanglements of self-centeredness.
The low self-esteem that imprisoned a teenager like Kris has a tremendous
impact on her quality of life. It affects how she feels about herself
and about others. Her low self-esteem leads her to underrate herself as
a student, as an employee, and as an athlete. Her negative self-esteem
makes it difficult for her to build and maintain friendships with others.
It will significantly limit her openness to intimacy within marriage some
day. And Kris will probably continue to doubt God's promised love because
her underlying fear is that she will never be good enough to earn God's
approval.
Tara marches to the beat of a different drum. She makes space for grace.
She believes that God chooses to grant her the gift of worth. Healthy
self-esteem is grounded and groomed in grace. One's self-worth is not
earned, but given. And that's why people like Tara can be both self-confident
and humble at the same time.
These are what we should believe for ourselves and for others, as
we interact with God's royal children from day to day. God is calling
us to contribute to the growth of one another's self-esteem. There is
no room for judging, put-downs, constant criticizing, inappropriate expectations,
comparisons, and basing our acceptance of others on what they do rather
than on who they are.
Rather, we are called to mirror grace to others by offering them acceptance,
affirmation, encouragement, and genuine assimilation into our circle of
love. We should offer loads of free hugs (these are sometimes called "non-contingent
reinforcements"). By contributing to others' positive self-esteem,
we encourage them to feel good about themselves and about others, to perform
to the best of their ability, to expand their circle of friendships, to
experience intimacy in special relationships, and to enjoy a relationship
with God that compels them not to mourn but to dance.
Tara heard the music and is a royal child who enjoys life as celebration.
Do you hear the music? And are you sharing the music with people like
Kris?
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