My Better Half (part 2)

I'm not as bad as I think. 
Just ask my husband.  He tells me all the time how attractive I am to him, but at least once a day I look in the mirror and see something ugly.  I see someone who needs work (lots of work).  Someone who is a million miles from perfection - something that, on my superficial surface I consider reachable and even covet in other people that I meet.  Can you see it? Even now, I have trouble talking about the good in me without considering the negative.
This constant self ridicule even bleeds into my relationship with God.  I have no problem with the verse found in Philippians 2, where it tells me to "consider others better than yourself."  But as they say, the person with the lowest self esteem is likely the most selfish - so I am likely missing the meaning of the word "humility" there. 
I had a friend named Dee Dee in college.  She had a very unusual personality -At least, so I thought when I first met her.  Dee Dee came prancing (literally) through the dorm hallways passing out wildflowers that she had just picked to anyone and everyone she could see.  I thought some of the things she did and how cheerful she was a bit over the top.  But that was just the melancholy me, the better part of me thought she was fantastic (like sunshine on a cloudy day)!  No one in the room could escape her contagious laughter, and the way she always could find something to smile about was truly an amazing feat to me.  Dee Dee was a God send to our dorm, there was no doubt about it.  She made us look at life, look at the world, and see something innocent and beautiful again.  And I was thankful that we were friends. 
Somewhere down the line of people she met that year on campus, that cheerfulness, that beautiful light, would soon be snuffed out.  A guy friend that had meant more than "friend" to her had made her feel like less than perfect.  He had told her that she laughed too loud or too often or perhaps had just pointed out just how different she was to the rest of civilized society and it was about time for her to "grow up".  I saw a change in her, and I felt in me as well.  Someone had crushed my friend's spirit and in the process had robbed us all of her contagious joy.  Dee Dee seemed to feel even worse at night.  She started talking very negatively about herself.  This new Dee Dee was shocking to me.  I'd never seen her so depressed.  I didn't think it was possible.  Dee Dee had those down times like me?  When she would talk with me, she would make herself sound like the absolute worst of the worst, saying things like, "How could God love someone like me?"  Dee Dee so perfect, so special, so innocent, and devoted to God and school; she is asking this too??  How can that be?
Do we all just assume that human opinion and God's are interchangeable?  Or are the people around us just more real to us than Him and thus more valuable?

As a new and improved blogging me, I hope to be less of a Debbie Downer and more upbeat and real.  I want my readers to know through my writing  that indeed hope is not lost.  We all go through trials and not one of us is the image of perfection.  I, just like Dee Dee, have more than just one side that everyone sees, and that means I'm complex, not devious and hidden.  I am more than my struggles.  I am more than my jokes (thank God).  I am not the worst of the worst, but I am a sinner.  And I am encouraged by that because my God has a habit of using people just, like, me.  Where I am weak He is strong.
(Philippians 4:13) 

(I encourage you to watch the movie "Machine Gun Preacher" or if you do not want all the four letter words and violence, you can google it and read about the real man behind the movie.  I know the guy's not perfect, and you might not agree with every judgement call he makes, but to me it's just another amazing story of how God takes the "riff raff" of this world and puts them to work for His kingdom.  I don't know about you, but I find that to be very encouraging.)