Don’t Believe the Lies! You Are Enough!
How many times have I wrestled with myself about my value? It seems it has been an ongoing battle since I was little. In elementary school, I was pretty self-assured—I made good grades, I had good friends, I was relatively popular, and was affirmed by my teachers. I think middle school is where I started doubting myself. That seems to be the case for a lot of people. From the time I became a teenager, I began to doubt my abilities and my worth, and I really didn’t know why.
Experts say that in order for children to grow up with a healthy self-concept, they must be nurtured early in their lives. This is where I believe I missed out. My father died when I was six years old, and my mother never remarried. Even though I always felt loved by my mother, she was working two and, sometimes, three jobs to keep us financially afloat. Therefore, she wasn’t able to spend a lot of time making sure my emotional needs were being met. So, the absence of that male influence, coupled with the fact that my mother probably didn’t know how to address those emotional needs, allowed doubt to surface.
I grew up without a positive male authority figure to affirm me. Countless studies have shown that daughters that grow up without their fathers suffer from low self-esteem and lack confidence in their own abilities and value as human beings. In other words, it can cause an extremely negative impact on her life and how she views it. It eventually affected how I moved throughout my life.
After recently reading several articles and excerpts from books describing the effects of women who grew up without fathers, I was astounded to realize that I fell into five of the six categories of dysfunction related to fatherless daughters. I now knew why I went through life feeling devalued. You may have heard the saying, “When you know better, you should do better”. Making that discovery pushed me into action because I then knew it was my responsibility to do something to rectify the dysfunction in my life.
“The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.” – Isaiah 9:2 NLT
Now in my 60’s, I am in a much better place emotionally, but admittedly, still carry a few battle scars from growing up without that positive male influence. It has taken literally hundreds of hours of self-reflection, journaling, therapy sessions, and much, much prayer to help lift me from that abyss of always questioning if I am enough. Taking those intentional actions made a world of difference in my life, and I hope others will take whatever purposeful steps they need to take for their own lives. Sooner rather than later.
Too many women struggle with this concept of not being enough. In this society, we are constantly bombarded with images of success, fame, and beauty that subliminally tell us that we are not enough if we can’t duplicate those images. Those are the lies that we believed, but we must recognize that we are enough because God says we are. The struggle may or may not stem from an absent father, but something has definitely impacted the sense of worth and value for far too many of us.
If any of this rings true for you, it’s time to look for and discover some answers. I would love to walk that path of discovery and deliverance with you. I’m only a couple of clicks away; contact me at Lois@ThePathwayCoach.com.
Blessings,
Lois
