Self Hate Syndrome Community Group
This is a group designed to offer support to people who believe they are fundamentally bad and deserve to be punished. Here we can learn to stop the unholy war we have been waging against ourselves.
It is a supreme irony that only through what looks like hopeless defeat and utter brokenness do the greatest victories come. Being shattered beyond all human aid and desperate beyond desperate has been for me the greatest gift I ever had. The greatest moment in the history of the world was when it looked like the ultimate tragedy-when they killed God. Surely all was lost, right? But no, out of the ashes of that seeming defeat life and victory and hope emerged and the greatest of all victories was won. We tend to look at things from an unspiritual perspective. We envy and praise those who are happy and prosperous and successful. We loathe ourselves because we are none of those things. We feel worthless, like the scum of the earth. I don't know if you have ever read the Bible but it sets for a very different perspective and worldview. Jesus physically touched and healed the supreme outcasts of the day-lepers. He hung out with and showed great love toward drunkards and prostitutes. He said it is the least who are the greatest. It says that He has chosen the weak things the things that are despised, the things that are nothing for His purposes. That is me to a tee. From the world's perspective I am an utter failure beyond any hope of redemption. I have crossed every line and have been cast out and spurned by many. I have tried and failed time and time again. My inclination has been to try very hard and then give up in absolute discouragement and then be tormented with guilt for walkingin foolishness once again. Drugs, booze, manic madness, empty promiscuity--you name the pit and I have plumbed it's depths.
Now as I said, at my lowest, most desperate and hopeless point--when suicide was next--God has met me and lifted me out of the dunghill and the ashes. He is comforting me in my mourning, He is freeing my from cruel bondage, He is giving me beauty for ashes. How do I know it is God? The fruit of it that is how. My tree was withered and blasted beyond all comprehension. Never in a million years could I fake or in my own efforts produce the good things that are coming now. My defeat is a gift as it drove me to my knees in utter desperation. The God I serve is the only one who can turn impossible situations around. There is nothing He cannot do. Knock and keep on knocking at His door, seek and keep on seeking, ask and keep on asking and I guarantee He will respond. We must press in until we find the victory only He can bring. If He will forgive and embrace and love me of all people then I know no one is beyond His aid.
Take heart and don't give up my dear friend!
Now as I said, at my lowest, most desperate and hopeless point--when suicide was next--God has met me and lifted me out of the dunghill and the ashes. He is comforting me in my mourning, He is freeing my from cruel bondage, He is giving me beauty for ashes. How do I know it is God? The fruit of it that is how. My tree was withered and blasted beyond all comprehension. Never in a million years could I fake or in my own efforts produce the good things that are coming now. My defeat is a gift as it drove me to my knees in utter desperation. The God I serve is the only one who can turn impossible situations around. There is nothing He cannot do. Knock and keep on knocking at His door, seek and keep on seeking, ask and keep on asking and I guarantee He will respond. We must press in until we find the victory only He can bring. If He will forgive and embrace and love me of all people then I know no one is beyond His aid.
Take heart and don't give up my dear friend!
To show how great his forgiveness can be, God reached out to a man named Saul, Saul was someone who hated Christians and wanted them all locked up or dead. But God turned Saul into Paul the Apostle. Paul was a leader of the early Church and was responsible for starting many of the first churches and for writing many of the books in the New Testament part of the Bible. Even if you have committed murder, God can forgive you.
The Holy Spirit is God and God is love. You are valuable to God; Jesus went through unimaginable agony just on the physical level alone because you are valuable to him. Any voice that tells you that you are worthless is contradicting God’s word (the Bible) and God does not contradict his own word. The voice of condemnation pulls you away from God. The Holy Spirit will draw your attention to sin and do so in a way that is not a personal attack on your value as a person. The Holy Spirit will urge you to come back to Jesus and turn away from sin. He will do it in a loving and gentle way. It is important to recognise the voices and listen to and respond to the Holy Spirit and reject the voice that tells you to give up.
If you are of the impression that God has flipped a coin and you lost the coin toss then I want to try and help you to remove that idea from your mind. How many times have you heard John 3:16? You might even know it off by heart but just in case you don’t here it is again in paraphrase “For God so loved Steve that he gave his only Son, so that if Steve believes in him Steve will not perish but have eternal life.” Ok that is not quite the official version but think about it. Don’t gloss over this point, let it sink in, I don’t care whether or not you have heard it a million times before because if you think that God has not chosen you then you have not heard this verse at all. Point one God loves you. Point two God gave his only Son (allowed him to suffer excruciating agony) because he loves you
Remember this important point, unlike us; God has an unlimited power of concentration. We can only concentrate on a limited number of things but God can concentrate on every single person 24/7. You have God’s attention; he is not indifferent to you by any stretch of the imagination. God feels everything that you feel; he knows your every thought.
If you are feeling extremely discouraged by a sin that is controlling you then you need to learn a few keys to overcome the condemnation and then learn to see who you are in Christ. You are dead to sin and alive to God. (See Romans Chapter 6) God loves you now. His love is unconditional. He loved you while you did not know him and that means that he loved you while you were still rejecting him and doing things that he did not want you to do. That means that you do not have to earn God’s love. Your motivation to stop sinning is not to make God love you. When that point gets into your spirit you are free to follow God and his way because of love, and you can follow him in his strength, not your own. Never get the idea that God likes it when you put yourself down and condemn yourself, you are not agreeing with him if you are telling yourself how hopeless you are when you sin.