Self-Esteem has been a buzz word for years.  How do we keep kids from feeling depressed?  Make sure they have high self-esteem!  How do you help them perform well in school and sports?  Pump up that self-esteem with prizes and rewards!!

What the self- esteem movement recognized correctly was that how people see themselves is important.  I once heard a story in one of my education classes about an education experiment.  The teachers in a school were told that the low performing students were gifted and the gifted students were low performers.  By the end of the year, both of these groups of students lived up to their new labels.  The former high performers were now struggling, and the low performers were now succeeding!  The difference was in what their teachers believed about them and therefore what they believed about themselves.

Isn’t that what self-esteem really boils down to… what we believe to be true about ourselves?  The trouble with the self-esteem movement though is that it tries to get us to believe we are worthy by outward success or recognition.  And while those things DO feel great for a short while, they eventually fade.

MY PAST

I remember growing up, I loved to sing (and still do!).  But I struggled to have confidence in myself.  I was always look for the next thing to validate that I was good at singing.  Would I get the next solo?  Would I make the next honor choir?  If I didn’t get chosen, what I thought of myself and my abilities took a beating.  But if I was chosen, it seems like a confirmation that I was in fact a good singer….but only for a short time.  See that’s the thing about trusting success or popularity as the keeper for  your self-esteem.  I would be so excited about being chosen for an honor choir, but once it was over, I was right back to needing that external recognition, and doubting my abilities.  I needed to be chosen.  I needed to be liked to prove I was talented!

THE PRESENT

This last month, I was talking with my 1st grader about a big standardized test she has coming up.  She told me she was nervous about it, and I asked her, “If you do terrible on this test, will it change who you are at all?”  We talked about how that test had no power to decide who she was, but rather God has already decided who she is!  And as I spoke the words to her, I realized how often I am just like my first grader.  I may not be nervous about a standardized test, but it may be a task for work, or my ability to handle all that goes with motherhood, or other people’s opinions of me.  I get nervous about these things because deep down I fear I won’t be “good enough” if I fail at these things!

You see, I think the problem our kids, and let’s face it, all of us, are having today, isn’t with self-esteem it’s with identity!!  Who am I?  When I get recognition and prizes and pats on the back I can start to see my identity as tied to my talents or success.  I have value because I am talented or successful.  But when those are taken away or rejected, I can start to doubt my identity.  I get rejected and this feeling starts growing in the pit of my stomach that I am not “good enough.”

HOPE!!

 The good news is, this doesn’t have to be the way we live!!!  When we accept Jesus as our personal Savior, our identity is set once and for all and it is UNCHANGEABLE!!!!  Listen to who you are as a believer in Christ.

1 Peter 2:9- “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light!”

John 1:12- “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

Galatians 3:26- “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.”

My unchanging, forever, no-matter-what identity is that I am God’s child!  And yours is too if you are a believer in Christ.  That alone makes me valuable.  My identity remains the same when I have great success or when I completely fail.  For me, that is so freeing!!!  But this can be so hard to live out.  Even as I was in the process of writing this blog post, I got an email rejection letter for a piece I submitted to be published on another site.  And immediately I started to feel shame and embarrassment that I had even tried to submit my piece.  Of course I wasn’t good enough! Maybe I’m just really not any good at this!!  Why did I even start a blog…and the ridiculous snowball effect begins in my mind and emotions!  

Fortunately, I was in the middle of writing this post and had these truths in my mind and I STOPPED the snowball!!  I realized I was doing it again!!  Taking rejection and turning it into my identity!!  I purposely set my mind of the truth of God’s word and reminded myself of who I really am.  I’m still disappointed, but that rejection doesn’t have the power to change who I am and knowing that truth makes a huge difference.  

 THE CHALLENGE

So, the next time dinner is just a flop or I get snappy with my kids, and I am tempted to feel like I am just a failure at motherhood or when I make a big mistake at work, and it’s totally my fault something goes wrong, or whenever I face the next rejection in life, I don’t want to nose dive into self doubt!  I want to stand firm in my identity!!  The task of motherhood does not define me.  My title at work does not define me.  Other people’s acceptance or rejection of me and my work does not define me.  And it doesn’t define you either.

I pray that we as mothers and wives and believers in Christ, could grab ahold of this truth in all areas of our life.  Let’s stop letting anything other than Christ decide who we are!  

Every morning before I take my oldest to school, I have her say a few truths with me.  “I am loved.  I am chosen.  I am forgiven.  I am beautiful.”  My prayer is for all of us to believe and stand firm on those truths.  You are God’s chosen, loved, beautiful, forgiven child and that will never change.