While I have a pretty healthy body-images these days, I won't deny that I've had problems with it in the past. I went through a period in my teen years where I was so concerned about being thin, that I was tempted to try on anorexia or bulimia. Although I never did develop those eating disorders, the fact that I had even considered "trying them out" meant that I did have an eating disorder. Or perhaps more correctly put, a body-image disorder.

One very strange thing about my body-image problem was that I did not really have a self-worth problem. It's true that I often felt isolated and sometimes determined that people didn't really like me, but I thought I was pretty great. I felt I was worthy of love and attention. This really perplexed a therapist I once saw, when I told him my roommates hated me (they certainly acted like it), but that I held a very high opinion of myself. This was because when people have feelings of low self-worth, they often imagine that others don't value them.

Maybe I didn't have a great level of self-worth, but I had enough to survive on. My feelings of worth came from my Heavenly Father. I knew He loved me. I knew He valued me. I knew that I was His child. I knew that Jesus died for me. I knew that God knew my every thought and action, that he forgave me when I did wrong. He understood my heart. He understood me.

This knowledge has carried me through very difficult times in my life. While I am not immune to the world and the messages it sends to us, I have not been without a defense against it. It's true that I've unwittingly allowed some of these messages to slip into my mind and nibble away at my soul, but they've never been able to devour me. My knowledge that God loves and values me has worked like a protective shield...I've only needed to hold it up and shield those evil messages away.

It is unexplainable in the medical and psychological world that someone like me, who is so prone to depression, can have such a high level of self-worth. Depression almost always necessitates feelings of self-loathing or low self-worth. And those feelings certainly have tried to enter into my heart, but thankfully I know better. My testimony of God's love for me is stronger than mental illness. It's stronger than the world's wrongful messages that come through the media and other modes. It's stronger than people who have sought to isolate me. It's stronger than anything.

I have, over time, developed stronger feelings of self-worth on a more intrinsic level. I have been able to heal from past injuries. I have been able to go from trusting that I have value, to feeling that value. But where would I be, had I not believed in God's love for me? There were times in my life when I could have just thrown away what I believe in, sending my hope for peace and happiness along with it, but instead I held fast to the knowledge that an Almighty Being, Creator of us all, loved me.


And I am so grateful for that.