Self-harm - The mirror of change

If you’ve ever been to an old fashioned fairground you’ll know what I mean by the hall of mirrors. That small corridor of concave and convex glass which produces the most disturbing effects on your reflection. The enormous head – the bulging legs – the stomach the size of a pin. A perfectly average human-being can stand in front of one of these panes of glass and be confronted with an image that is distorted in the extreme.

We all have self-image. We all hold beliefs about ourselves and God. As Christians, we aim to hold biblical beliefs – ones that state that we are in God’s image (Genesis 2), ones which acknowledge both our sinfulness (Romans 3:10) and the fact that we are forgiven, washed whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7) and adopted into God’s family (1 John 3:1) because we are loved by an awesome God and his sacrificial son (John 3:16). Ones that are clear that we have great hope for the future (1 Peter 1:3).

But none of us manage to hold on to a perfectly biblical self-image all the time. Sometimes, we think of ourselves far more highly than we ought. Sometimes we forget about God’s sovereign love and once-for-all sacrifice and think of ourselves as worthless, dirty, pathetic wastes of space... Thinking of ourselves in any way other than the way in which God sees us is like looking into a fairground mirror and believing the distortion we see before our eyes. It’s buying in to an image that just isn’t true.

Someone who is self-harming tends to have their eyes very firmly fixed on a distorted mirror. They may understand doctrine well but deep down they often don’t believe that God really can love them … that Jesus truly has forgiven them … that they really are acceptable because of Jesus or that there is any hope of change or a glorious future to look forward to.

It isn’t surprising that people believe a distorted image. Many have been through the pain of bullying or sexual abuse or have grown up in an environment where there is little praise or love. And it is so, so much easier for fallen human beings to believe the repeated torments of an abuser than the words of Scripture.

But if people are to leave self-harm behind (and just generally grow in Christ), the biggest single step to take is to turn their backs on false self-image and to believe what the Bible says to be true. This rarely happens over night. But through repeated exposure to the truths of the Bible - discovered for themselves and reinforced by others – self-image (and indeed the way they view God) can gradually begin to change. And once a person stops seeing themselves as a pathetic waste of space and instead sees themselves as a precious child of God, picking up the blade or grabbing a pile of pills becomes much less likely.