Listening to the message in church today, I really felt like God was speaking to me.
See, I've always been very introspective and kind of distant, and I know I prefer to keep my deeper thoughts to myself rather than to confide in anyone (okay, maybe it started around grade seven or eight, but I won't go into that right now). Not only that, but I've also always known that it's mostly a defense mechanism; I build walls to prevent other people from seeing the real me because I'm afraid of what they'd think of me once they saw behind all the facades and veneers. It's something I've really struggled with, especially since I started this blog. Sure the walls keep me from getting hurt, but they also keep me apart from people, and as much as I try to pretend that I'm perfectly okay on my own, "no man is an island."
Anyway, the message today was entitled "Overcoming Superficiality and Insincerity: How Can I Build Authentic Fellowship?" Right off the bat I knew that it had potential to be particularly relevant to me. I won't regurgitate the whole message or anything, but I do want to share the last point, which was, to me, the most striking: "authentic fellowship starts when we're willing to love and be loved."
The rest of the points, while useful and true, weren't really anything I hadn't thought of before, but this one, this one made me pause. It was easy for me to think of all the ways I could love people more: be more open, accepting, vulnerable, sincere, giving, etc. etc., but I'd never thought too carefully on the idea that love is reciprocal. That is, in order to love, I also have to be able to accept love. I mean, I'd known that I had problems truly believing that people care for me, but I'd never considered that this inability to trust in other's love could affect the way I loved others.
It's something I'm still reflecting on. Actually, that point reminded me of a quote I read recently from Eleanor Roosevelt: "friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world." I didn't agree with the "all-important" part, but I think the quote really works with the idea that to love is to love and be loved.
Hmm...My low self-esteem is something I've always thought only affects myself, but now I'm beginning to realize that it affects others too. It's because I have no confidence in myself that I can't allow myself to believe that others could care for me. When I don't even see anything worthwhile in myself, how could I expect others too?
Come to think of it, that relates to something my prof in Romantic Poetry and Prose discussed in class on Thursday. She brought up the question of whether or not an author was necessarily his or her own best critic. The answer, of course, was no, because if that was true, we'd all mark our own papers, and a professor's job would be considerably easier (not to mention we students would all be happier too). In view of tht type of logic, I really can't explain why I've persisted in believing that I'm my own best and truest critic. If people complimented me, I never believed that there could be any truth to their kind words because I thought that if they knew the "real me" they'd see how wrong they were. But maybe...maybe I was the wrong one.
I wonder...I wonder...why...why hasn't this logic ever occured to me before? I've always accepted my partially conscious, partially sub-conscious self-loathing, but I never bothered to examine it critically. Sure, I knew it wasn't good for me to have practically no self esteem, but deep down I always thought that I was right to think so poorly of myself.
Funny, but I'm just realizing some of these things now, as I write.
I don't think I'll ever stop thinking that I have many flaws, but I think, hope, that maybe the revelations of today will allow me to stop thinking of myself as completely worthless.
I did, you know. And it's been tearing me apart, bit by bit for all these years. I've always wondered if everyone felt that way at some point in time, and just hid it behind their masks as I did, or if I was "unique" for loathing myself to such a degree.
The only benefit that came from my self-hatred was the fact that it enabled me to appreciate God's love all the more. There are two songs that always rang true with me--Michael W. Smith's "Never Been Unloved," and Point of Grace's "Who Am I?"--because they reminded me that even though I was nothing, God still loved me. I don't know why I could accept God's love, but not people's, but there you have it.
Well, despite all I've uncovered today, I know that any changes that take place in me (as a result of those discoveries) won't happen all at once, or right away. I've gotten so used to thinking of myself as cold and distant that it'll take me a while to readjust my attitude, and not to mention, big strong walls don't exactly crumble effortlessly (unless you're in Jericho). But, if nothing else, I feel more hopeful now, and less resigned to a life of loneliness in the crowd.
