worth.

I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the constant, raging battle within me that allows what is around me to tell me who I am. I'm tired of fighting for my sense of worth against the billowing waves of society and culture and relationships. I'm tired of walking with the weighty, rusted chains attached to my hands and feet that rub my wrists and ankles raw when I attempt to shake them off. I'm tired of allowing myself to be defined by the curveballs life tosses at me. I'm tired of walking through life with a limping soul.

I'm done with that life. They. Don't. Get. That. Power. I'm taking a stand. It's an internal stand, one that perhaps will go unnoticed by the average eye. But everything within me is roaring and fighting and battling because I have to make the choice. The choice that chooses truth over feelings, trust over walls and One over all.

They don't get to define me anymore. No one but One gets to tell me who I am and Whose I am. That Young Life girl who decided to stop taking my calls? That job which causes so much sacrifice?  That guy who walked away? That device that is no longer the newest or most updated?  That person whose standards I can never seem to live up to? That friend who never said "I'm sorry"? That image of perfection I'm supposed to create for people around me?

I've over them. I wash my hands of their false claims that tell me I have to look a certain way to be someone. That I have to act a certain way to get someone. That I have to perform a certain way to prove I am someone. For too long I have run on the hamster wheel of self-worth - running faster and faster and faster trying to reach the next acceptable image of myself. The image of myself that I will finally think is worth something. All the striving and hoping and conforming around some foreign, unobtainable sense of worth has got to stop.

There is only One who should have that kind of power and I have denied it of Him for too long. He comes and gently lifts me when I have run myself dry, spent myself on an endless list of things I think will fill me up, only to find myself left emptier then I was before. He whispers in my ears and His voice travels directly to the realms of my heart and He tells me exactly who I am:

I am unique.
I am beautiful.
I am creative.
I am loving.
I am compassionate.
I am valuable.
I am brave.
I am strong.
I am tender.
I am faithful.

There, in ten simple words, my worth is found again. My soul breathes again. My heart pitter-patters within me because this kind of worth is not one that I have to seek - it is one that is simply given, gracefully and lovingly.

For twenty-seven years I have tried it the other way and let me tell you - it just isn't working. I'm tired of the fight. He tells me I'm worth it every day...it's time I start doing the hard work of simply believing.