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Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?  He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his hear.(Psalms 15:1-2)
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:
(Proverbs 23:7)

I will never forget the day when Matthew 19:19b gripped my heart, thou shalt love thy neighbor as  thyself.  I was sitting at my kitchen table seemingly frozen in time - my mind totally fixed on those seven words.  Finally the tears came with my words, Lord, I don’t even like myself - how can You use me?  God lovingly troubled me with the verse for weeks.

Self-esteem; I never liked the word when I was in college probably because I didn’t have much of it.  I linked it to selfishness and self-centeredness.  Years later, among Christians, it did not have a value to it.

I chose not to ask my pastor about this, I didn’t have enough confidence to do so.  So  I went to the library and read the title on all of the books in the psychology section.  A little book with the title Telling Yourself The Truth, published by a Christian organization in the 1970’s, stood out from the rest.  I took it to the reading area and asked God to teach me. Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee? (Proverbs 22:20-21)

Just the title brought an answer for me that God has used in so many ways in my life, and in lives He has entrusted me to help.  I dwell on this because emotional healing from painful yesterdays, trials, and illness is linked to telling ourselves the truth. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. ( 1John 2:20-21)

Until I was twenty years old, my mother constantly assured me that I was bad, ugly, stupid, worthless, inept - couldn’t do a thing right.  For a long time I accepted the blame for my family’s dysfunction and my mother’s mental illness.

When I started dating in college I submerged all of that accepted truth and developed a pretty good facade.  Submerged?  Yes, just below the surface with outward signs remaining.  For example, I could never look someone in the eye and talk to them, my I can not’s told their own story, and any praise or thanks would make me reply with words of I didn’t do it very well, or I could/should have done better.

Just days before God branded my heart with thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself my pastor obviously had observed for long enough - and felt he needed to do something about - my lack of self-worth.  He gave me a three point sermon from his desk through my office door while I was making a pot of coffee for him.  I did not accept his words as constructive - but they were very kind and prepared me to deal with the issue.

Telling ourselves the truth - I have come to understand that almost every person on earth needs to activate this process in some area of life.  For those of us with much hurt it needs to penetrate and permeate so much of our lives. I believed lies most of my life:

• God didn’t love me as much as He loved other people.
• Romans 8:28 was not true for me.
• God abused me.
• I was stupid, ugly and inept.
• I was not good enough to serve God or make any real difference.
• My family dysfunction  was my fault.
• God made a mistake when He created me.

... and on and on I could go.

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