Self Image

Life can be such a precarious balance, even the Christian life. There are many statements made in the Bible that warn against pride, and not thinking about yourself more highly than you ought. Jesus made a point to remind the people to whom He preached that the foundation of the Law was to love God (Mark 12:30) and to love their neighbors as themselves (Mark 12:31); in otherwords, to focus on others.

There are many ways that we can work on to better love our neighbor. But how can I love my neighbor if my “love” for myself is so poor as to be almost non-existant? What if I dislike or even actually hate myself? A healthy, appropriate self-love may need to be cultivated in order to be able to properly love someone else.

A person I know quite well would often say, with great seriousness, how she was “stupid”, and would verbally degraded herself about her appearance and skills. It made my heart ache when I would hear her say these things.

As a physician, I see people all the time who practice denial about issues regarding their health. No, I don’t really have diabetes; no, my high blood pressure is not a problem; no, I don’t have cancer; and don’t you try to tell me otherwise. The reality is that yes, that person does have that disease. They have chosen to live in a delusion that pretends there is no problem.

In the same way, my friend created about her appearance and her abilities a delusion that she chose to live in. This delusion made her act as if the truth about her did not exist, the truth that she does have skills and intelligence and beauty.

What she forgot about was that God made her, and He made her with all of her skills and abilities. He touched her at the moment of her birth, and made her for a purpose. Indeed, every bit of her is covered with God’s touch – his fingerprints, you might say. And God “don’t make junk”.

Steven Curtis Chapman on his 1999 album Speechless included the song Fingerprints Of God that expresses this so well. It is a re-affirmation that every one of us was made by God, and that He loves us intensely, and wants us to view ourselves with truth: Not denying our failings, but also not amplifying them out of all proportion.

I played this song for my friend. I hope she got the message.