You're Worth It!

Our lives can be summed up in seasons.  Seasons where we enjoy the fresh crisp invigorating air up on the mountaintops.  And seasons where we feel suffocated by the darkness and cold hopelessness of the valleys.  Sometimes we are on our way up the mountain.  Sometimes we are tumbling head over feet back down.

Regardless of our season or situation, we are constantly reminding ourselves of our value, our worth.  Other people and other influences in our lives are constantly reminding us of our value and our worth.  The books we read, the conversations we have, the phrases we repeat in our minds, the shows we watch on tv, the sermons we hear in church, the fights we have with our spouses and parents and friends.  Everything can have an influence on shaping how we see ourselves.

Imagine a place where you feel worthy and valuable and meaningful.  Picture being there right now.  Imagine what it smells like there, what it feels like, what temperature the air is, what sounds you hear, what your hands are touching, how your body and mind and soul feel.  For me one of those places is at the gym.  So long as I work out hard, I never leave the gym feeling ugly or unworthy or like a failure.  NEVER.  I leave the gym feeling confident, powerful, hopeful.  I leave there feeling beautiful.

A place where I feel the EXACT opposite is when I am checking out at the grocery store and all of a sudden, even though 5 seconds ago I was feeling like super mom for having gotten through an hour and a half shopping trip with a baby and a toddler, I have a grocery cart full of so many green leafy vegetables and nutrient powerhouses of foods to feed my family, I am feeling GOOD about my choices and who I am as a mother and a wife, I turn to get in line to check out and there it is.  Those STUPID wretched AWFUL magazines.

The ones that could care less that my shopping cart is bending under the weight of the massive amount of vegetables in it.  The ones that don't think it's great that I have spent the afternoon with my kiddos trying to educate them on grocery shopping and nutrition.  The ones that aren't telling me good job for the sacrifices of my day.  The ones that can do nothing but scream at me, "You're not worthy!!"  I don't have a body and will never have a body like the air brushed, underweight, post breast augmentation beauty of a female figure staring me in the face.  All of a sudden, in my mind, that is ALL that *really* matters.  My body.  The look of my body.  All of a sudden, just like that, it is all that matters.

You see....  It doesn't really matter if what we are telling ourselves is truth or lies.  If we continue to say it, we will eventually believe it.  There was a span of my life where I told myself and listened while others told me that my body needed to look a certain way, and if it didn't look that exact certain way, then no man would ever find me attractive.  My husband would never think I was beautiful (and definitely not sexy), people wouldn't like me, I wouldn't be good enough, and I wouldn't be worth as much as someone who had that body shape.  

What a stinky smelly piece of bologna that is.  Come on!  It's a LIE.  A big fat ugly nasty stupid lie.  And yet I listened to that lie for so long that even now when I have a healthy body image, a healthy sense of self worth, a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ, I still fall back into that trap with just one glance toward that magazine rack.

It's discouraging and painful and frustrating.

But here is the good news.  And it is REALLY good news.  The more we tell ourselves the TRUTH about who we are, the truth about what makes us worthy, the truth about what makes us valuable, the truth about what makes us beautiful, the more we read it, hear, see it, and say it, the more we will believe it.

The TRUTH is that you are worthy.  God has searched you and knows you intimately.  Not just the surface you, but the intimate you.  All the deep down parts of you.   The truth is that no matter where you go or what you do, God will find you and pursue you. (Ps 139)

The TRUTH is that your value is far above precious jewels and rubies.  (Prov 31)

The TRUTH is that God values even the tiny birds who are sold for pennies.  It is hard to even comprehend what value he places on you, knowing that He doesn't even forget a single one of those tiny birds!  He knows the number of hairs on your hair.  You are worthy.  (Luke 12 and Matthew 10)

The TRUTH is that, to God, you are worth it.  You are worth enough to be called a daughter and heir.  An heir to the most righteousness and good King that this world has ever known.  The TRUTH is that he has known you and your heart for a long time.  The TRUTH is that in His sight, because you are in Christ, you are both holy and blameless.

Did you hear that?

You're blameless.  You are holy in Him.

Take control of your thoughts today.  Stop listening to the TV, or the magazines, or your spouse, or your mother, or whoever and whatever it is in your life that is telling you that you are not valuable.  Stop believing the LIE that your worth is somehow contingent upon your successes, your accomplishments, your dress size or your talents.

You have a great deal of worth.  And the amount of your value does not change day to day.  It is constant, because He is constant.  You are worth more than rubies even when you feel ugly, even when you yell at your kids, even when you cheat and lie, even when you "whatever!"  There is NEVER a time when you are not valued by God.  Start telling yourself that.  Start telling yourself these scriptures and other scriptures to remind yourself, "I'm Worth It!"

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.  -Eph 1:3-14, NASB