How is self-esteem linked to the image and likeness of God? – Part II

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“We humans have not self-esteem, we have dignity, we are the children of God”. Sheila Morataya

The root of our dignity and value

It seems that one of King Louis XV of France, Luisa, was once the object of some reproach by one of her nannies. The princess did not like the correction and angrily replied:-“Am I not the daughter of your king?”

The woman did not hold back and made the following observation: -“And I, am I not the daughter of God?”

Over the years Carmelita, being religious, often recalled this amazing replica. She was always thankful for it. (A thousand anecdotes of virtues, Julio Egui Rialp)

As I have mentioned before, for us Christians, the self-esteem or the love we must feel towards our own way of being, looking and acting; comes from the fact that we belong to a higher category than that of animals and plants: we are the children of God. We should teach this to our children since they are in our womb, then while we hold them in our arms for the first time and over and over again while we breastfeed them. Repeat tirelessly: you are a son of God, you are a son of God, you are a son of God, it will imprint in that child’s emotional and affective world that nominal feeling that he is good just the way it is, that he is worthy, that he is loved and that he deserves happiness. The children of God are worthy, they are made to the image and likeness of God, they posses the same dignity and divine nature without being God, for God is our Creator and we co-creators of our life thanks to these faculties of God.

The powers of the soul

You and I are human beings gifted with a soul which is destined to be eternal and where the unique powers that distinguish us from other beings of creation are: the intelligence and the will. Because we are intelligent, we can think, reflect, decide and act. Love.

Intelligence is the spark of God in our soul, “if mankind can forget or reject God (wrote San Agustin) He never ceases to call very man to live and find happiness”. God made us intelligent on the first place to glorify life and all the things we can accomplish with it: work, friendship, the emotions that lead to making a home and having children, suffering and the hardships that help us grow and talk to others about his wonders and his great love for you.

The will, the second power, follows intelligence and pushes it to decide for that which is good for it: discipline, order, care for one self, well done work, the knowledge of defects and gifts. Know myself in order to improve myself, to know the purpose of life and leave the world wiser than before, a world where dignity and the value of the children of God is felt.

This is not easy. One needs will in order to jump into the waters of the deep self and without God as a captain through that dive, we can be taken into wrong paths of permissive selfishness until we end up believing we are Gods and we are not.

Ways to come closer to God as the starting point and creation

The world, writes the philosopher López Quintas: “from the order and beauty of the world we can know God as the origin and end of the universe”. This is true, and I use the words of San Agustin: “Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air which expands and spreads, question the beauty of the sky … question all of these realities. All of them respond to you: see, we are beautiful. Their beauty is a profession. These beauties are subject to change, who has made them if not the Great Beauty, not subject to change? “ (The City of God, San Agustin).

Contemplating nature, the sky and its different clouds; be marveled with the fall of a waterfall and the majesty of an eagle in flight, is to contemplate and know the beauty of the majesty and power of God. Each time you walk through a path, you walk up a mountain, you arrive to a lake or you look down a cliff of the Grand Canyon, you are marveled, you feel something stir inside of you, this is because God has give you this ability to be wondered in order to look at him, these are moment to glorify his creation, moments to come closer to him in an intimate way and begin to talk to him about your journey through life. The same can happen when you see a beautiful red cardinal, or a rooster with its powerful demeanor, the hop of joy of your dog or the gentle walk of a turtle. The animals, said Saint Francis of Assisi, are our younger brothers and we have to respect them and love them. They are there to keep us company and so that we do not feel alone. When we look at them in their different forms and beauty we have the opportunity to come into a dialogue with God, expressing our gratitude for having created two separate decorations for the delight of our eyes, even if they can be dangerous, is the Tiger not an absolute beauty?

The human being

“In the day when the Lord God made earth and heaven there were no plants of the field on the earth, and no grass had come up: for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to do work on the land. But a mist went up from the earth, watering all the face of the land. And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:5-7)

It is important that if we are single, husbands, wives, mothers and father, we keep in mind that the educational task of teaching self-esteem to our children, must be rooted in God. Nobody has created oneself, God is our Creator. He created us because he loves us and so that we learn to love just the way he loves us. We cannot stay at the level of beauty queens or models who think that their beauty was created or that it will never cease to exist, such an idea of oneself, dehumanizes and deforms the beauty that God created give that we are way more than just our beauty, our age and our intelligence. Our nature is “spiritual”, it belongs to God and this is what gives us dignity, worthy, unique and unrepeatable. You and I are Nobles with our own title and rulers of our life by divine right. An education on self-esteem that does not take this into consideration, will cause the man or the woman to stumble, to fall and not be able to stand back up, (I invite you to research the number of models, actresses and business men and women who commit suicide annually) give than their power to function and be confident in themselves will be rooted in themselves, and not on that who out love created them.

We have the power to open ourselves up to truth and beauty, to live with the sense of duty, to know what freedom is and the voice of our consciousness, we aspire to the infinite and the joy, and we ask ourselves about the existence of God. The animals, the plants, the rocks, the water, the wind, the sun, the moon, the stars, which are not so disarmingly beautiful, cannot do any of this, nor can they have a dialogue with God. They do not know that they have dignity, that they are worthy, that they are beautiful, that they are kings and lords of the land, only you and I can do that. It is something we take for granted, that we see as natural although in reality it is not, for God in his mercy and love, chose every single one of us to adore him, glorify him, thank him and transmit all of his love and wisdom to others. This truth is what should fill us with a holly self-esteem and leave us free from insecurities, fears, and doubts about ourselves. The origin of our self-esteem is in God, because God is love and self-esteem is love for oneself, but a type of love which comes from being a child of God, create to his image and likeness.

Lets invoke our guardian angel so that he helps us deeply understand our worth and lets go the Holly Mother of Beautiful Love to experience it^{^[1]}.

Firma http:www.encuentra.com/sheila-morataya