Feeling bad in our own skin

This article is part of an ongoing discussion series on Mental Health and the Church. While each article can stand on alone, if you’d like to start at the beginning click here.

Sometimes we can feel bad in our own skin!  

At times this is true for all of us, but for those who have struggled with self-esteem issues, mental health issues, or who have been discriminated against in some way, ‘feeling bad in our own skin’, not feeling quite right, or good enough being us, can be very real.

As Christians sometimes this can become even more of an issue, because in many instances church teachings over the centuries have taught us that we are born fundamentally unacceptable as humans and need to spend our life trying to change that. Yet is being human bad, or is there a truth about humanity that we have forgotten? What follows in the rest of this article is, I believe, a critical understanding that is vital for humanity’s mental health.

A critical understanding

God (the Trinity) are love (1 John 4:16) and love cannot be kept to oneself, it must be shared with others. God is relational and therefore relationship is a fundamental part of His nature – an inclusive nature that reaches out and embraces others, bringing them into that love. In fact the love of God is so inclusive that their plan in making mankind was to have an ever increasing circle of people who they can love and who can love each other as they do.

For those interested in the theological understanding, the oldest and most solid theology of the Trinity says that the Godhead is a perichoresis – that’s an ancient Greek phrase that means ‘a total outpouring, and perfect receiving, of love, acceptance, respect, and honour among the three intimate partners of the Trinity, who mutually indwell each other without any loss of their personal identity’.

Catherine LaCugna (1952–1997) said in her study of the Trinity “Any notion of God as not giving, not outpouring, not self-surrendering, not totally loving is a theological impossibility and absurdity. God only and always loves. You cannot reverse, slow, or limit an overflowing waterwheel of divine compassion and mercy and a love stronger than death. It goes in only one, constant, eternal direction—toward ever more abundant and creative life!”

We have been brought into this divine union through Christ. We have union with God and each other, yet we suffer no loss of personal identity and distinctiveness. What this means is…we matter – our humanity, our health and sickness, our relational status as mothers, fathers, as single, child or adult, our work and play, our struggles and victories, all form the arena for our participation in the Trinitarian life of God. God does not demand that we escape our life, meeting Him in the sky, but instead He comes and joins us within our ‘ordinary’ human existence.

God’s plan was always to share in our human existence, so that we and the Trinity might truly mutually indwell each other, without any loss of our personal identity. In other words that we might truly be brought into the perichoresis of the Trinity – their divine dance of inter-dwelling love, acceptance, honour, and respect.

Knowing and experiencing this relationship, this love and acceptance, this honour and respect, is an essential part of learning how to feel comfortable in our own skin and coming to understand that we are not a mistake, not bad, broken, or not good enough because we experience problems and difficulties. Many health practitioners believe that lack of relationship, of forming true connection, of knowing love and acceptance, is at the base of most of our mental and physical health problems.

Knowing that we are accepted in all our humanness – that we don’t need to try and escape it or become something more than human, and that God promises to make His home in us as we are, loving us accepting us, being there for us, encouraging us, giving us wisdom where we need it, never leaving or forsaking us – this gives us hope in our journey through life as humans. This is our central resting place. Yes we may have battles, yes we may struggle, yes sometimes we may wish we could escape life, but when we really truly know that God is with us, what a difference that makes! It gives us hope, infuses us with strength and determination, gives us peace, and can fill us with joy despite our circumstances.

We all need to know that God loves us

Do you know that God (the Trinity) loves you – really loves you, not just tolerates you or loves you because He has to, as God? He loves you so much that He wants to share your life with you and have you share His. And while knowing this reality may not be an instant fix, experiential knowledge of this is your anchor that will hold you steady, and will be your place of peace to come back to in the storms of life. Personally, without having experienced the Trinity’s love for me, I would not be who I am today, and in fact, would probably not even be alive. I’m so thankful for their love, support, wisdom and the healing they have brought about in my life.

The Trinity loved you and me so much that Jesus came from them – for you, for me, and for all mankind, that we might be included in that divine ever-expanding circle of relationship and love. If you don’t know this as well as you’d like to, ask Jesus to show you how much the Trinity love you, how much you mean to them. Jesus came to give you the life of the Trinity. Think on that. Their life, resources, love, power, and amazing minds and wisdom. Those resources are yours to draw on and will definitely help you feel more comfortable in your humanity, no matter what its challenges are. And feeling comfortable in your own skin is priceless beyond measure!

 Extra for study

A little extra for those who like to study… God created mankind in His image – that means he created them with his nature; to be loving, kind, merciful, patient, etc. just as He is (see 1 Cor 13 for a description of His nature). He looked at what He’d created in mankind, and said it was good. He walked with mankind, talked with them, and all along planned that His home would be made with them. Exodus 29:45, 46; Leviticus 26:11; Numbers 35:34; 1 Kings 6:13; Zechariah 2:11; Matt 1:23; John 1:14; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Romans 8:10; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 3:17; Revelation 21:3.

For the next article in this series click here.