Self Worth (June Hunt Hope for the Heart) (6 page)

Using the list below, identify the parenting style by which you were raised. Then take the three appropriate steps to leave your feelings of worthlessness behind.

• Overly critical parents/authority figures
  
  • Admit the past truth
    : “My parents were impossible to please.”
    
  • Address the present truth
    : “My worth is not based on pleasing people.”
    
  • Appropriate God’s truth
    : “I am fully accepted by God.”
    

“He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:6 NKJV)

• Overly protective parents/authority figures
  
  • Admit the past truth
    : “I was smothered by my parents.”
    
  • Address the present truth
    : “My worth is not based on my ability to protect myself.”
    
  • Appropriate God’s truth
    : “The Lord is my help in times of trouble.”
    

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

• Overly controlling parents/authority figures
  
  • Admit the past truth
    : “I was not allowed to make my own decisions.”
    
  • Address the present truth
    : “My worth is not based on my decision making.”
    
  • Appropriate God’s truth
    : “The Lord is my guide.”
    

“God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.” (Psalm 48:14)

• Overly permissive parents/authority figures
  
  • Admit the past truth
    : “My parents did not set firm boundaries for me.”
    
  • Address the present truth
    : “My worth is not based on my ability to set boundaries in my life.”
    
  • Appropriate God’s truth
    : “The Lord has established my boundaries.”
    

“You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.” (Psalm 139:5)

Forgive? Did God really expect Dorie to forgive all who mercilessly used and abused her, who treated her worse than a rabid animal, who withheld from her all the longings of her heart? Such a thing would be humanly impossible. Why would she even
want
to forgive the evil done to her? How
could
she ever forgive it? And why
should
she forgive it?

People with low self-worth often struggle to get past the circumstance that was the breeding ground for their low self-esteem. However, Dorie knew that in order to put the pieces of her broken life back together, it was necessary for her to forgive those who had grievously wronged her. The Bible says ...

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13)

Because the issue of forgiveness is such a stumbling block to so many people, let’s understand that:

• Forgiveness is not ...
  
  • Circumventing God’s justice. God will execute His justice in His time and in His way.
    
  • Letting the guilty off the hook. It is moving them from your hook onto God’s hook.
    
  • Excusing sinful behavior. God says the offense is without excuse.
    
  • Stuffing your anger. It is resolving your anger by releasing it to God.
    
  • Being a doormat. It is being like Christ—He is certainly not a doormat!
    
  • Forgetting. It is essential to remember in order to forgive.
    
  • A feeling. It is an act of the will.
    

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:36)

• Forgiveness is ...
  
  • Dismissing a debt owed to you. It is releasing the offender from the obligation to repay you.
    
  • Giving up the option of holding on to the offense. It is giving the offense to God.
    
  • Possible without reconciliation. It is one-way and requires the action of only one person.
    
  • Extended even if it is never requested or earned. It is in no way dependent on any action by the offender.
    
  • Extending mercy. It is not giving the offender what is deserved.
    
  • To set the offender free from you. It is to also set you free from the offender and free from bondage to bitterness.
    
  • Changing your thinking about the offender. It is seeing the offender as someone in need of forgiveness, just as you are in need of forgiveness.
    

“The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.” (Daniel 9:9)

• Make a list of all persons you need to forgive.
  
  • Write down all offenses committed by each person.
    
  • In prayer, one by one, release each offense to God.
    
  • Take each offense off of your emotional hook and put them all onto God’s hook.
    
  • Then take the offender off of your hook and put that person onto God’s hook.
    

“Never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them back,’ says the L
ORD
.” (Romans 12:19 NLT)

Q
UESTION: “How do I sustain a forgiving spirit?”

A
NSWER:
Most often, forgiveness is not a onetime event. You may need to go through many rounds of forgiving in your fight against bitterness. This is a normal part of the process of forgiveness. But if you confront your hurts and face your wounds, it will be worth the emotional bruises you will likely experience. As you consistently release each recurring thought of an offense or revenge for an offense, eventually the thoughts will diminish and disappear.

Dorie was constantly asked one question: “Aren’t you bitter toward your mother?” And Dorie’s consistent reply? “No. I am not. As a child in the orphanage, and the difficult years that followed, I experienced periods of bitterness, but I chose to forgive my mother even though I knew she would never respond to me. Perhaps the most basic mistake made by those who are bitter is the belief that they cannot forgive because they don’t feel like it. Forgiveness is not an emotion. One can choose to forgive whether one feels like it or not. Many of us have had to reject our emotions, saying ‘No’ to our natural inclinations and firmly declare, ‘I forgive.’”

Jesus emphasizes the “again and again” nature of forgiveness when He says ...

“If he sins against you seven times in a day ... forgive him.” (Luke 17:4)

For years Dorie concealed a secret. She thought people would not believe her if she told the sordid truth. After Dorie left the orphanage at age 13, she went into the first of many foster homes in which she suffered merciless verbal and emotional abuse, as well as physical and sexual abuse. She confided, “There was nothing I could do to stop him from violating my body. He warned me that if I ever told anyone he would kill me.” Dorie believed him.
28

At a later home, her rollaway bed was placed in a hallway where strange men passed by in the night. Her foster mother gave these men permission to perform immoral acts on Dorie, and she was repeatedly forced to participate in their perversions. As a result, she believed she could never be clean and whole again.

Dorie later said, “[God] gave the grace to bear my trials. It was He who chose me to belong to Him; He knew the first day of my life, as well as all the days in between. He knew that some day that dirty little girl would stand before thousands of people and tell them that God is faithful.”
29

Although Dorie van Stone experienced the depths of degradation and disgrace at the hands of those with the hardest of hearts, the Lord raised His choice servant up to bring hope to multitudes of people in America, on the mission field, and around the globe.

The Bible says ...

“Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.” (Psalm 71:20)

It is possible for you to acquire a positive self-image and to learn to value yourself as God values you. In order to do that, God wants you to accept the following seven truths about yourself.

“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
(Genesis 1:27)

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”
(Romans 15:7)

“Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? ‘Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?”
(Romans 9:20–21)

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:12–14)

“I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the L
ORD
’—and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
(Psalm 32:5)

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ... If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”
(John 15:18, 20)

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”
(Philippians 4:11)

Dorie’s image of herself was shaped in part by her father, whom she met only after she became a young adult. Her time with him was limited, yet he was still a major influence on her sense of self-worth.

In Dorie’s mind, she finally had the father she had longed for, and when she met with him to share her conviction that the Lord had called her to go as a missionary to New Guinea, she longed for his support and affirmation. Her sense of loss was profound when he answered, “If that’s what you plan to do, then don’t unpack your suitcase. From this moment on, you are not my daughter! I never want to see you again!”

As she traveled back home, she cried out to the Lord, “He was the only person in the world who ever loved me. How could he do this to me?” Her father had not only rejected her one last, painful time, but he had rejected Christ during that visit as well. Soon, however, Dorie had the presence of mind to remember that God had not left her. She was not alone. She said, “When you have nothing left but God, you realize that God is enough. God has stood beside me when no one else wanted me; He was not going to abandon me now. God would have to heal the emotional pain that throbbed through my body.”

At that moment, Dorie began to allow the Lord to change her image of herself that had been perpetuated by her parents. She could choose to believe what the
Lord
said about her, not what her parents had said.
30
The Bible says ...

“The L
ORD
your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)

The Lord says
: “I’ll give you My strength to do what is right.”

“I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
(Philippians 4:13)

The Lord says
: “My power is perfect when you are weak.”

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
(2 Corinthians 12:9)

The Lord says
: “Rely on Me. I am able.”

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”
(2 Corinthians 9:8)

The Lord says
: “I love you.”

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
(Jeremiah 31:3)