why do we try so hard to make people love us? why do our spirits compel us to gain everyone else's admiration in order to feel adequate in and of ourselves?

someone once said that "only by comparison are we able to feel inferior"
i find this so true in my life.
every day i look in the mirror and think, "hey im not so bad"
but then i open the door and go to pieces in the face of the world.
i tear myself down, bit by bit, through everyone i see
thinking "man if only i had eyes like that" or "a figure like that", or "if only i was as good at that" or "more confident in that" or "more skilled in that".
then the me i know gradually becomes the me i have no desire to be
and slowly, ever so subtly, i lose myself.


why? is it just destined to be that way? am I just destined to always have this struggle?
is this the thorn in my side that i, like Paul, will always wrestle with?
perhaps it is my cross to bear in this life: my own inadequacy.
i think we're all programmed to struggle more with certain "sins" and trials,
whether it be alcoholism, gossip, self-destruction, homosexuality, selfishness, lust, body issues,
or any other various and assorted human tendencies.
the real question, however, is whether we will allow Satan to use those tendencies to control us and keep us down, or if we will accept God's truth--that we ARE overcomers, through Him--and rise above our own humanness.


Eleanor Roosevelt once said "friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world."
perhaps thats why my friendships are often very superficial. i am not a friend of myself, ergo true friendship with others is next to impossible.
what a tragedy... though i wish it disturbed me more. at the moment, superficial friendships seem to be enough. i dont care enough to change. i dont WANT to be a friend of myself cause that means i accept myself as i am--flaws and all--and i dont.

what a shame, what a shame, what a shame...


accept God's truth. it's the only thing that can save you.


::edit::
from a convo with my pal Jessie:

Jessie: i was explaining the other day that people telling you you're "beautiful" and stuff is really empty. cuz we were talking about self-esteem and all this and its damaging when people don't tell you that...but its damaging when they do, and then they don't value you. it's equally damaging to hear things about your body or your appearance but to not hear them about who you are.

Sarah: so true. so much so that when you DO hear that stuff, it almost makes you uncomfortable to hear it cause we so often DONT hear it, ergo we dont believe it because it's ingrained in us to believe the worst. those are the easier things to believe--the bad things.

Jessie: yeah i often do not believe it. what was hard for me is that it kept getting reinforced by empty things. i had an enormous struggle with self worth in the last 10 months, and that is the problem with allowing anyone to validate your beauty besides God.