Later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. Genesis 30:21

I subscribe to New Living Translation daily newsletter, (http://www.newlivingtranslation.com) NLT is a website which takes Bible passages, quotes & Psalms,and breaks them down into everyday language and relates them to real life. I find it to be a wonderful to help understand and discover The Bible better.

Here is a translated passage from Genesis: "As we know, Dinah was the only daughter of Jacob and Leah. Apparently no one really paid much attention to Dinah until she went out for a walk one day in the city of Shechem. During her visit to town, she was raped the son of the ruler of the city. In Jacob's and his sons' eyes, Dinah had been damaged and their family had been insulted. Her father failed to provide any leadership in this situation and his sons took matters into their own hands. The results were treacherous and bloody. In all of this, the victim was overlooked. Dinah was neither comforted nor consulted. Instead, she was treated with almost as much disrespect by her family as she was originally by her assailant. Dinah slipped back into oblivion.:

NLT then offers this thought: "You probably know someone who can identify closely with Dinah. Perhaps you have experienced that same anonymity as a victim who was unnoticed or forgotten. Remember several glimmers of hope: Even when everyone else forgets, God doesn't, when no one seems to notice, God does; when no one seems to care, God does; when you feel all alone, you aren't. And one of the first lessons God will teach you as you depend on him is that there are others who also care and are willing to help. Do you ever wonder how many people are convinced they are worthless?"


Now I can't relate to Dinah because of her unfortunate incident (thankfully), but I can relate to being the (perceived)forgotten victim. You see I always had a self esteem problem – although I did not realize what it was – I just disliked myself and looked upon myself as a second or third rate person. I guess my attitude shone through, because in my mind I felt I was being treated as such. As in all perfect catch-22 situations, the more I thought I was no good, the more I was treated poorly and ergo I felt worse. Perceived or not, I was miserable for a lot of my life because of this. I went on with life, went to school, made friends, fell in love, got married, had a child, held down jobs….but always deep inside of me was this feeling of unworthiness constantly nagging at me. It truly affected all of my life.
and was never mentioned again. Her story reminds us of the tragedies which occur when family members are careless with each other. Someone ends up paying a high price. I had a revelation about six years ago – I AM A GOOD PERSON!!!!

I stopped worrying about what others thought of me –how I looked, dressed, acted and expressed myself. How liberating it was for me. From that time forward I began the healing process. From that time I found the person always living inside me – I dressed the way I wanted, did or did not do the things I wanted & tapped into my creative soul.I have days when that self doubt kicks in, but I now know enough to kick it back out!!!