One of the first things that my counselor asked me was “Why do you give him so much power?” She was referring to the ability that John had, to make me feel stupid. And how I would become so angry at him for making me feel stupid because, as it turns out, I held a belief that I had no talent or beauty to speak of, but at least I had my intelligence. My intelligence was the one thing that I thought gave me value. I thought I was worthless without it. So when he made a comment that struck that nerve, it would threaten my whole sense of self-worth. For example, he would say “I’ve never heard that verse interpreted that way before” and I would hear, “you are stupid”. I couldn’t feel “ok” about myself if I believed that he believed that I was not intelligent, so I needed him to believe that I was intelligent to feel like I had worth. When the counselor helped me realize that I had been giving him the power to take away my value, I was shocked. A lot had to change; I had to find new ways of thinking. I had to admit that John wasn’t really guilty of “making me” feel stupid. I had to take responsibility for being so insecure that I was completely dependent on him believing the right things. It was not fair of me to read into his motives something that was not there, and it was not fair of me to make rules for what he believed. I needed to stop trying to control him.
I needed to release John from the role of providing me a positive view of myself. I could no longer rely on John as my source of confidence. It should never be a goal to change anyone or the way they think. I am releasing this goal. It is a desire that I will take to God. I can’t change the way John thinks about me. I need to know the truth about myself and not give anyone the power to change that. I need to be “ok” regardless of what others think of me. I am going to release my need to protect my weaknesses and take the attitude of the ditzy blonde that is not embarrassed by not knowing things.
I see now that I was evaluating my value based on the wrong things. I am not valuable because of my positive traits; I am valuable because of the personhood inside of me that was made in the image of God, because God chose me and adopted me, because Jesus sacrificed his life for me, because God has given me a significant purpose in life. Because of these things I am valuable and I can esteem myself well.
I have always believed that God loved me, but that didn’t mean I was lovable. I didn’t see God’s love as providing my value. Now I believe that I am completely valuable, and yet, I am only valuable because of God, not because of myself. So with my acknowledgement of my self-worth, comes a healthy humility.
Now I think- “maybe I am intelligent/gifted/pretty, maybe I’m not” but I don’t have the feeling that my value is somehow threatened if I’m not. I feel secure in the stability of receiving my value from the right place.
My new found security has allowed me to be able to love and serve others in a way that I couldn’t before. I wasn’t able to minister to John because I was too busy trying to protect my crippled self-worth. I was empty and had nothing to give. But when all of my needs for love and acceptance are met by God, I am full, and I can give out of the overflow.
Its so cool when the crazy things we hung of hat of value become so clear. They held us hostage for sooo long and we didnt know. Then the unconditional love of the father breaths new life over the old lies.
One of my old lies was that i had to be as good as everyone at there biggest strength or i wasnt ok. (Didnt matter if i was better just had to be as good) What an endless impossible cycle that was just to feel ok about my self. Ih the freedom of the love of my heavenly daddy!