Self- Worth is not something that you can simply turn on and off. It is something that has to be fundamentally believed in order to establish a solid foundation that enables you to truly become the person you were made to be.
Let me just say right now, that it does not matter what has gone in the past, there is nothing that you have done or said or believed that makes you anything less than Worthy to be a mother, to be loved, respected, adored by your husband and children, and the reason for this is because God loves you. This love needs to be fully understood in order for you to understand your worth.
If the greatest being, who created heaven and earth and everything in it; if HE loves you to distraction, unconditionally, always, without fail, no matter what you have done, then how can you deny your worth in this world?
The reason you are so well loved, is because you are forgiven. If you feel unworthy, or that you are not good enough for this job of mothering, it is not because you actually are not good enough. You are. You ABSOLUTELY are. If you feel this way, it may be because you have not forgiven yourself for past traumas, or perceived failings in your natural character, or because you have not accepted just how well God loves you. He loves you so much, that He put is only, adored and beloved son Jesus, to death on a cross, that YOU might be forever forgiven and therefore have eternal ACCESS to Him. He did this because He wanted ACCESS to YOU. He wants access to you, because you are his adored and beloved child, too. Sin stood in the way of this, God could not look upon sin, but because Jesus, the human God, died on the cross, all the SIN is removed. You can move on from it, with God, because you are FORGIVEN.
The moment that I accepted this information, and actually let it permeate my heart, the most incredible thing happened. I let go of trying to make myself worthy, of relying on other people’s opinions of me to make me feel worthy, and I felt myself come to a place of rest, peace, calm, tranquillity; and that place was in God’s big loving arms.
The world that we live in subscribes to the notion that how OTHERS perceive you is important. This is a toxic, but highly addictive way of thinking, because we are told through everything that we engage in, that this is fundamental.
If you believe that how you are perceived by others defines you, then you need to stop and have a long think about this train of belief. People are mere mortals, with opinions. There is a saying: “The loudest voices are so often wrong.” Another way of thinking about this is: “Just because something is repeated over and over again, doesn’t make it right.”
You might have been told your whole life that you are dishonest, or weak, or too loud, or not attractive, or perhaps you have never been told these things, but you suspect that others have been saying them about you. The time has come to let go of looking to yourself or others for the validation that you need, to allow you to be ‘good enough’. There is only one place to look, and that is to the God that made you. And guess what he thinks? His perception of you is:
You are beautiful
You are Gifted
You are magnificent
You are FORGIVEN
You are so very loved and delighted in
You have a PURPOSE in life: it is waiting for you to be ready, you just have to believe the above things
And why can God make these assertions?
Because He made you, and He doesn’t make mistakes.
God doesn’t just see you how you are today, remember. He is often asserting who you are to become, years from now. He sees the whole picture, He sees your value to Him and wants to give you your inheritance: full and absolute productivity in the use of your gifts that He gave you: “…doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.” 1 TIM 2 vs. 11 (MSG)
If you struggle with your sense of self-worth, then I must recommend a book for you to read by a woman named Joyce Meyer, who struggled with her own sense of self-worth. In her case, it was brought on by years of abuse at the hands of her father. This was not my story, but I ended up through my own poor choices with a very low self-esteem, and reading her book ‘BEAUTY FOR ASHES’ helped me to change habits that were making the situation worse.
In particular, I had gotten into a habit of relying on others to prop up my self-esteem. This book, which I read while I was weaning off my antidepressant medication, taught me how to accept the way that GOD feels about me, and to use Him as a foundation in which to plant my roots: for He is full of nourishment and spiritual nutrition, and by doing this, I am growing a strong healthy tree that bear has begun to bear beautiful fruit.
THIS is why I am now able to complete a task, to write a book, or start a business. Because I have a healthy sense of self-worth, and it no longer requires my own strength or other’s perspectives of me to thrive. The only rule is that I look to God for my worth, and my guidance.
