Whether I am your sister or your sister-in-Christ I want you to know that I care about you. I've made a lot of bad choices in my life. While I can't change them, I hope that, occasionally, some of my mistakes are lessons for more than just me.
I still don't always get it right, but thankfully I have grace to get me through. God is good... all the time.
Know that wherever you are today, I have been there before. Broken-hearted? Perfectly content being single? Dating an abuser? Happily married? I've been there. What is different now is that I used to let my relationship status on any given day define who I was.
Nearly six years ago, a long term relationship I was in ended abruptly. Devastated, I chose self-destructive ways to deal with it... although I didn't see those ways as self-destructive at the time.
The next four years were rough. Even when I chose to show hope and happiness on the outside, inside I was a self-loathing mess. I desperately wanted someone to show me that I wasn't as easily cast aside as a few key men in my life had made it seem.
I believed I only needed one man to prove it to me. Surely in all of the men in all of the world, there was one... but one after another they let me down.
By 2015, life in general had begun to turn around. God had rescued me from my own bad choices, and I credited Him with that fully... but spiritually I was fading. I honestly believed that God didn't care if I was happy.
Then, something wonderful happened. At what I thought was just going to be a regular coaching session, God spoke to me. As I talked to my coach, and he asked me why I reacted to this one way and that another, I started to see that every decision I was making was wrapped up in my self worth... and I didn't know what that was.
I had begged God over and over through the years to show me my worth. I had read great stories where others came to understand theirs through one perfect moment or divine appointment. I didn't know why He wouldn't tell me mine... but I had formed some ideas. They were wrong.
Two years ago, God showed me how all of those I times I begged Him to show me that I was worth something, He had been trying... But I would ask Him and then look to people for my answer. I had done again and again.
That's when I asked Him to help me break that cycle. He showed me that the people I was looking to were "just people" and my thoughts about myself should have nothing to do with how they view me.
While I know you won't understand your worth until you are ready to understand... I have to share this with you. So that you know why it is so important to me that you know who you are in God's eyes... not who you are in the eyes of another person.
Whether it is Valentine's Day, Christmas, New Years Eve, or Thursday afternoon... Please remember that there is nothing in a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates that tells you your worth. No ring on your finger or marriage license means you are worth more or less than anyone else in this world. No amount of respect or lack-thereof from someone else changes who you are.
No man or woman in your bed with an arm around you can show you how strong you are or how loved you are or how amazing you were created to be.
Only One can do that... your Creator.
Here is what God sees when He thinks of you... read it out loud to yourself. Faith is voice activated. When you say it out loud, you believe it.
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