All of my life

I confess that I have struggled with feeling valuable. As a child growing up, my mom told me more than once that she had never wanted me and that I was ugly. So, I grew up with a real lack of self-esteem. I was shy beyond belief, talking only to my close friends and struggling to participate in my classes, although I was a very good student. When I went to college, I continued to struggle with my self-worth, trying to find where I fit in. I moved into the Spanish House my sophomore year so that I could be with other like-minded people, those who were learning to perfect conversation in Spanish. The smallness of the house helped me to make friends and to feel more accepted there. My junior year, I was encouraged to apply to be a junior counselor in a freshman dorm, so I did and amazingly I was accepted. That was a strange year for me, the first year I really dated anyone in my whole life (yes, I was 20 at the time), and I actually enjoyed my time with the freshmen on my hall, helping them to overcome homesickness and problems with classes. Then my senior year, which was really only one semester because I had attended summer school in order to graduate early, I returned to the Spanish house and was elected president of the house. What a surprise for me! But I still didn’t feel very valuable; I was convinced that I wasn’t much in this world. I had met my future husband and we were dating, and even though he told me he loved me, I didn’t trust his love. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the relationship to end. I finished my studies and returned home to apply for jobs teaching Spanish, something which was hard to find in the middle of a school year. Nevertheless, I was determined to find a job and escape the taunts of my mother who was once again telling me that I was not going to be able to succeed. I did find a job in a small county in Virginia at which the teacher had gone on maternity leave, so I took her place. As it so happens, that location was close to my fiancé and it was where I met the neighbor who first introduced me to the Lord Jesus. Following my acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I began to feel valuable, not because of anything that I had done but because of His great love for me. I began to see the world differently; I accepted the love of my fiancé and the friendship of people at church, virtual strangers who shared a love for God just as I did.

I thanked the Lord then for His righteousness which He had imparted to me through the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn’t understand how my salvation came to me, but I was thankful for it and for the fact that I was not living under a cloud of unworthiness any longer. I knew in my heart that the Lord had made me righteous, that He had made me worthy.

An added benefit was the love that He poured out on me. Yes, I had been loved by my earthly father. He frequently told me and showed his love for me, but He wasn’t home much since he worked about seventy to eighty hours a week, so I didn’t see him much to get the affirmation I needed. However, once I became a Christian, I walked in the knowledge that my Heavenly Father really loved me and that there was nothing I could do to lose that love. He opened up the pipeline from Heaven and poured His love into my heart. For the first time in my life, I felt valuable. I was overwhelmed with this great love. So, what do you do once this love is poured out in you? For a long time, I just quietly cherished it, holding it close to me, hardly able to believe that the God of the Universe loved me…me, the ugly duckling who was never really accepted at home by my mother, thus setting the course for my life of self-loathing. But I turned away from that when the Lord gave me His love. And, more importantly, He taught me, and is still teaching me, that He didn’t love me so that I could hide that love away. He loves me so that I can use that love to reach out to others. No, it is not part of my natural makeup to reach out to anyone. But God can, through me. I have found myself speaking to total strangers, ministering in any way I can to show them that they, too, are valued and loved by God. I haven’t done a lot in my life that I can be proud of, but I am very happy with the fact that I am able to show others that they are worthy. Have you felt God’s unconditional love in your life? No matter how you have failed or how weak you are feeling, God’s love can be poured out into your soul, into all of the dark places that you have kept hidden because there was so much hurt and injury there. His love has been enough to get me through many hard circumstances, and since God treats all people the same, He is reaching out to you today, too. Do you feel valuable? You are a treasure to God, one worth sending His Son to die for. Let Him into your heart today and let Him begin the work of pouring His perfect love into your life. This is my prayer for you today, that you would truly know how much God loves you and that you would use that love to reach out to others.