Thomas, I too was berated by a teacher and others even closer to me than her but the value of a person, you or I is not established by those people but by God himself. Your self esteem is not the major issue in life. How highly you esteem God, and how highly He esteems you, is what really matters.
How you see God is affected by how you see your earthly father. Is he supportive and loving? How you see God is also affected by how you are treated by those who represent Him. A bad, or uncaring, experience with the church can affect the way you see God.
The church is made up of people. Sometimes people don't get it right but God is never wrong!
I count it noteworthy that this board, a rather busy place, has literally stopped for two days and waited for you because you wanted help! You are important to God and us.
God esteemed Thomas Lewandowski important enough to send His Son, The Lord Jesus Christ, to die for you. You are worth His time. If you esteem God highly enough He will help you through your problem. You need to trust Him.
It's a warranty thing. He made you, someone has broken you, God can and will fix you for free. Your problems have nothing to do with tithes or money in anyway. If you really do want help click on my name at the top of this message and it gives an e-mail address. All the underlined names are that way. Bearone
I agree that it's Gods esteem which is important, however we have to have enough self esteem to acept that we deserve it. This is the interesting part of all this though. in that we don't deserve it, but we have to be able to accept it! This is where we need to be able to stop and swallow our pride and then we will be able to accept God's love and then if God loves us then we need then to love ourselves as well. As the commandment of Jesus says "To love your nieghbour as you love yourself". You have to be able to love your self before you can love others.
Once you can accept that God loves you and so you need to love yourself as God does then you can love others and then the resonce from others is so much different.
