You are Valuable

Today I am going to post something I wrote a few weeks ago. I hope it will go in my book...so far this piece is unedited, but as I was reading, organizing, and editing other pages this piece was my own reminder of how much God loves you and I.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

God really does love you.

Every morning I awake and thank God for loving me. I haven’t always been able to do that. For many years of my life, the first thing I did when I awoke, was list out all of the reasons I was such a terrible person . My feet did not even hit the floor and I had already decided I was not worth having a place in this world. I went through each day, just trying to get to the end so I could go back to bed.

Oh how I must have broke God’s heart. God grieved over the hatred I bestowed upon myself. He listened to my thoughts and watched me walk through each day without hope or direction.
I am not sure the exact moment that I began to see my life this way. I think it was a progression of events, emotions, circumstances, and the inability to understand the worth that God has given me when He created me.

I don’t recall a time until I was in my 40’s that I saw my life as valuable. I think my life was a haze. I had allowed the enemy to put a veil over my eyes so that everything I looked at was blurred.

As a result, I looked to the world to define me. I looked to people to be my judge and my baseline. I bought in to the opinion of whoever was closest at the moment. I followed others points of views and took them as my own no matter what it was or whose it was. I really had no concept of who I was or who I could be.

I did not like myself. I could never believe that God could love me let alone like me. I believed that God loved you. I believed that God loved her. I believed that God loved him. I believed that God loved them. But I never could see how God could love me.

But today I get to wake up in the morning and thank God for loving me. I get to swing my feet off my bed, make my way to the bathroom, see my face in the mirror and know that God is pleased with me. Even as I write that, I am in complete amazement to the freedom that I now know.

For years I drug around the events in my life. I drug around the pain and sorrow that I felt. I drug around the weight of the world until I couldn’t take one more step. I was deep in the pit.

A few days ago I sat on my daughter’s bed and looked her in the eye and told her how valuable she was. I told her she was worthy of loving herself and being loved by God. I told her she had to believe it because it was true. I told her I understood how hard it was to really understand what that meant. I told her I knew that when I say she is valuable, she had a hard time knowing what that looked like in her life.

She is hearing the voice of the world define her. My heart breaks for her. My heart weeps for her. I realized that I had no excuse to care what the world thought of me anymore because there are too many people that need to know how valuable they are. There are so many people that believe that their live does not have worth.

On the days when we don’t believe and can’t seem to see the truth we have to turn to the Word of God. The scriptures tell us in many different ways of our worth.

One day while I was in prayer God shared with me how much he loves me. God opened my heart and I watched myself as I approached him. In my vision, I saw him as larger than life. He radiated love. He was sitting on his throne as I approached. I was small and timid. I was afraid and ashamed. He held his arms out to me. Like a child, I climbed up on to his lap. He wrapped his loving arms around me so that I was enveloped in his love. And he just let me sit there, on his lap, resting in his strength and sink my head in to him. Oh, how comforting that felt.

I remember when my children were infants. Some days when they took a nap or in the night when they woke up, I would sit on the couch with them and let their small body snuggle in to mine. They were so tiny and I just wrapped my arms around them. They slept so soundly with their head leaning against my heart. I felt their weakness and knew they needed me to love them and be their strength at that moment in time.

In my prayer time as I sat on the lap of my loving father, I felt my weakness being overtaken by the strength of who he is. He loves us so much. He wants us to feel free to climb on his lap and need him. He wants us to feel his loving arms around us and feel the comfort of his strength. He wants us to know he protects us, cares for us, and desires us to seek him.

We are valuable.

We are worthy.

We are loved.

I know it can be hard to believe. I know it can be a stretch for some of us to understand. But open up your heart. Walk to your Father’s lap. Let Him envelope you in his loving arms. Let His strength overcome your weakness. Value. Worth. Love. When God sees you, those words swirl around in His heart and that's how He defines you.

Believe me, it’s true.

Love, Teresa