Today’s post focuses on self-esteem and spirituality, and comes to us courtesy of the Belle of the Blog. Belle presents a particularly interesting (and original) take on the relationship between our view of ourselves, our view of others, and our view of the world and What Made It. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I did!

“I know I’m somebody, ‘cause God don’t make no junk.”

I remember the first time I ever saw or heard that phrase. It was on a little plaque hanging over the desk of one of my mother’s co-workers. There was a little country-mouse of a girl on the plaque, with mussed-up hair and two missing front teeth. I was seven and it seemed really silly to me to see something like that in an office. I also felt like whoever wrote it had made a mistake. God most indeed did make junk. I was proof of it.

I realized this one day in the first grade when my best friend LeeAnn told our entire class I didn’t have a daddy. Suddenly, taunts of “You’re a bastard!” sung out loudly by a kid named Buddy, were ringing in my ears. Everyone was laughing at me. I cried. I pleaded with them to stop and told them my dad had been killed in a car accident, but LeeAnn told them I was lying. And she was right. And I knew I was supposed to be ashamed of this truth. My own mother had even said to me, “Your father didn’t want you, but I love you.”

That day when I went home, I asked my grandmother what a bastard was and she told me that it was a child who didn’t have a daddy. She said, “Your mother is a whore and you’re a bastard, but I love you anyway.” And she did love me. And I know she didn’t know any better than to say that. But boy…did it stick with me.

I spent my whole life wishing I could be loved. Not because I was smart. Not because I had a father. Not in spite of the fact that I didn’t have a father. Somewhere along the line I also began to wish I could like myself. No matter what nice things friends or teachers or even my crazy mother or grandmother told me, I never really believed them. How could any of it be true when I didn’t have a father? When I was a bastard, the child of a whore?

When I was 15, I got lured back to the church where I had attended Sunday school as a small child. I remembered everything about the church…. The crisp white cinderblock walls. The way it smelled. The red Kool-Aid and Lorna Doones we always had for a snack during Vacation Bible School.

Soon, I was quite active. I volunteered in the nursery. I joined the Teen Choir. I fell head over heels for the sense of belonging I had there.

Soon I was baptized, believing that if I gave my life to God (whatever that meant), I would find happiness. I would find love. So, on a warm, sunny Sunday morning, I was dunked by our minister and praise the Lord! I had been saved. At least on paper.

In real life, I was still being teased and tormented. A group of kids at the church decided I was going to be the sheep they brought to slaughter. All because I went to prom as a favor to a friend. Joe was gay, but not out to his parents. He knew it would mean a lot to his mom if he went to prom, so he asked me to go with him as a favor. I went, decked out in a borrowed Gunne Sax gown. I had a wonderful time, but I also really enjoyed helping out my friend. I knew how hard it was for him in our school where the jocks and cheerleaders ruled.

The week after the prom, I walked into the choir room for practice and was instantly jeered. I was told I was going to Hell because I was friends with a fag. They told me I was going to get AIDS and die. They told me God hated fags and their friends.

I never told any of the church leaders what was going on because sadly I feared they would agree with the kids.

By now, I was beginning to wonder where all the love I was hoping for was hiding out. I was in God’s house, but he didn’t seem to be at home.

A couple of weeks after that, it was time for our church’s annual event where the junior and senior students took over all the roles of the adults in church: pastor (a boy of course), deacons, etc. I was assigned to teach a Sunday school class of 40-somethings.

My selected passages for teaching were all New Testament teachings and focused on Jesus’ compassion. I began with Matthew 22:39, “love your neighbor as yourself.” I was pretty much laughed out of the room by these starched and pressed Southern Baptist fundamentalists who told me that those who don’t follow God’s rules didn’t deserve his compassion.

This proved too much for my newfound faith and soon I stopped going to church at all. I questioned my value in the eyes of God. I knew that I was pretty much worthless to everyone else and now I felt like even God didn’t like me.

Every flaw, every problem in my life made me feel I was being punished by God because I couldn’t follow all the rules, at least not as they were interpreted by my Baptist friends. Yes, indeed, God did make junk on occasion and when he did, he made sure that said junk suffered.

Meanwhile, I excelled academically, won a scholarship, and left my small town for the big city and college. Away from the stifling sense of small town conformity, I was able to distinguish what I believed from what I thought I was “supposed” to believe. Over time, I saw the obvious – religion does not equate to spirituality or a relationship with God.

The years passed and I continued to search for a belief system that fit my way of thinking, always searching for something to make my life feel whole and complete and meaningful.

Eventually, I met my husband and fell in love, all the while believing I was unworthy. One day, he took me home with him for Easter. The priest at his church gave a rousing homily on the horrors of the war in Kosovo. I had never been as inspired by a sermon in my life. Over time, I realized that the Roman Catholic Church was where I belonged. I had never been a part of a church as focused on serving others. I began reading modern Catholic scholars and saints like John Neumann, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. One day, I came upon a poem by Hopkins. When I read the first few lines, it was as if something opened up within me and I began to understand a very real Truth:

My own heart let me have more have pity on;
let Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind Eyes
in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst ’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.

I came to realize that part of our purpose here is to comfort others with love, compassion, and understanding. If we are truly created in God’s image, then we know we are meant to be loving, creative, and kind. We are powerful beings. How could I be those things to someone else if I couldn’t first be kind to myself?

I didn’t get here overnight. I still struggle with negative thoughts about myself. But I continue to read (The Power of Intention has helped me tremendously.), to learn, and to strive to be what I think God intended all of us to be… amazing beings crafted in the image of a benign and loving Creator.

No matter what your religious beliefs, if you believe in a Higher Power, you have to believe that all created by that Force is good and that all of Creation serves a purpose. Including you.

So, just for a minute today, be thankful that you are you and that God (or the Universe) brought you into this reality. Know you are here for a reason. And love yourself… ‘cause you know and I know, that God don’t make no junk.

Tags: Religion, self-esteem, Spirituality

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