A Random Blog...

Okay, so I’m sitting in my over-heated apartment working away. I just acted upon what my senses sensed as a “good thing” and dove into a freshly-baked pan of banana bread I made this morning. Not to mislead you - I’m no Betty Crocker. I just read the directions and thankfully pulled it out before it caught on fire.

I wasn’t hungry for it - at all, but I ate it anyway. I just wanted to be “filled up.” Fully acknowledging that I was hungrier for more than what banana bread could feed me, I immediately heard what I call a God-whisper - some inaudible, but very real voice inviting me to “hang out” and just be still with my Maker. Not now God, I’m blatantly told Him as I worked away - I want to get this done!

Sometimes (okay, a lot of times), I’d rather do stuff for God than set aside time to be with Him, or let some lesser pleasure like banana bread try to fill me up. It’s this crazy paradox because what I’m working so hard at is to help young women know their value and to know where it really lies. I want them to know it doesn’t come from the clothes they wear, the shape of their body, their socioeconomic status, external beauty, or what they do. I want them to know who they truly are and who they belong to.

Coming from a family of over-achievers it’s natural for me to search for worth in the work I do - in what I produce and have to place before the world. Achievement (or beauty or personality or I’ll let you fill in the blank) seems to give significance to our seemingly insignificant lives. But my story of brokenness and God’s intervention in the midst of it has taught me better than that. Having been hospitalized for severe depression at age eighteen, I was unexpectedly stripped away of everything I had or appeared to be that the world deemed valuable. Brokenness stripped away my pride, sanity, personality, physical beauty and all I had placed my hope in: college on the east coast, Friday night football games, fraternity parties, and true happiness - someday.

But in being stripped away of everything I had gotten my worth from, I was free to receive my TRUE value. The God that was always there, but I never really knew met me supernaturally and began to free me with a true sense of my value and worth as His daughter. I was introduced to His truth, His living word - the mysterious book we had on our family bookshelf but never opened and the one I studied in my religion class, but never really listened to for myself.

Today, I joyfully walk in the truth of who I am; beloved, redeemed, forgiven, heaven-bound, blessed and made to glorify my Maker and Savior Jesus Christ. Reflecting on my season of utter brokenness, I am gently reminded that our worth comes from Him alone. So I can just relax, stop striving and just be. I think I’ll go do that now. =)