Last Weekend

I was asked to speak at NCC's women's beach retreat last week. In preparation for it, I wrote out my thoughts and later made an outline from it. So I thought I would post them here for anyone who was interested. This is what I shared after reading a short story I wrote, the pith of which was learning to let Christ tell us who we are and what we are worth. =)


You know, I used to think I was a fairly confident and secure person. I didn't know everything but I was comfortable with what I did know and I was mostly secure in who I was. For several years we spent most of our time at home so I didn't go out much and I read a lot and I was comfortable with that.
And then at the beginning of last year we sort of ventured into society again. We started hanging out with the youth group at New Covenant and we went to summer camp and it was amazing. God really blessed us and it was just the right thing at the right time.
But somewhere along the line I started to care too much about what people thought of me. I compared myself to the people around me and found myself lacking in almost every respect. I wasn't as pretty or friendly. I wasn't as "on fire for God." I wasn't as compassionate. I wasn't as honest and open. The list went on.
Very soon I began to feel overshadowed and passed over. Then a guy friend of mine asked if I wanted to pursue a serious, romantic relationship. We talked as friends for a few months to "get to know each other better." Then he sort of renewed his question about a romantic future. When I told him I could not pursue that, it only took him a week to be officially dating someone else. I knew that I had been the first to say no, but the fact that he got past me so quickly stung much more than I had expected it to.
It hurt a lot. I felt thrown aside and unimportant. Honestly I felt kind of worthless.
When I realized that I had based my self-worth on how much this guy cared for me, I was shocked. I knew in my head that my value was in God, but somehow, I had forgotten that. I let someone else tell me who I was.
As easy as it was to slip into that lie and that mindset that says I'm only as good as the attention that I receive, it was a lot harder to retrain my thoughts to what He says about me. Honestly, I think that's a battle that we fight all our lives. But He sent people my way to speak His word into my heart. He showed me things and He fought my battles for me when I was too tired to fight.
For example, one night last October I was feeling really low. In a larger family like mine, sometimes there's only enough attention to give to those who need straightening out, you know? And I have a really hard time asking for help or attention. The result was that I felt invisible. I did my chores and my school and because I didn't have "problems" or "issues" I sometimes felt overlooked. I felt like nobody saw me, really saw me.
Well one night it was bothering me more than it usually did. I was in a foul mood. I think I wrote an angry journal post and then got ready for bed. I wasn't in the mood to read my bible so I was just going to skip it. But God stopped me. He told me to go to my favorite Psalm, Psalm 32, and then to read the one just before it.
So I plopped down on my bed and flipped open my bible and started reading it. It was good, but nothing was leaping off the pages or anything and I was still really grumpy but I kept reading. And then I got to verse 22 and this is what it said.
"'Out of sight, out of mind,' I said. But you heard me say it, you heard and listened."
I was astounded. There, in the middle of my pain and my bad attitude, God told me that He was listening and cared, even when I thought nobody did. I was further amazed when I realized that not only did He know everything about me, all my details and preferences and little quirks, but that He wanted me to tell Him anyway. I was astonished to discover that He wanted to learn about me!
He knows you. He sees you. He knows all the things that make you, you. And yet with all of that knowledge, He still wants to discover you. He wants to pursue you. He cares about how you think and feel. And he wants you to tell Him. How cool is that? I mean, that just blows my mind!
A couple weeks ago I discovered an ungodly belief in my heart. I had come to view the fact that I do things on my own and don't ask for help as a strength. Conversely, that lead to the belief that any time I did need help and couldn't handle something alone, that I was weak. Being weak lowered my value as a person. Asking for help diminished my worth. How messed up is that? My worth isn't based on what I can do but on what He can do through me.
So I was telling my friend about this and my struggles with worth in general, and he told me that I was "living in the wrong house." That I had returned to the servant's shack and was looking at my reflection in a dirty mirror when there was a beautiful castle just waiting for me. That was so profound to me. The whole idea of being in the wrong place when you are meant for so much more.
From that concept, I wrote the story I acted out. And I named her Em because when you spell it backwards, it says "me".
I think that everyone has felt that deep rooted feeling of being worthless. We forget who our worth is really based on. But He stands there, holds out His hand, and asks us to let Him tell us who we are. Can you really pass that up?
Just to sort of whet your appetite, here are some of the things that God says about you and me. You can find lists of identity statements and verses online but here are just a few.

You have been chosen by God and adopted as His child. Eph 1:4-6

"Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long age he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift giving by the hand of his beloved Son."

It never fails to amaze me that God wants to "lavish gifts on us." Sometimes we get this mistaken idea that God is sitting up there with a sledgehammer waiting for us to mess up and so we develop a fear mentality. But verses like this remind us that He is our loving Father. We are His children.


You have been forgiven and redeemed of all your sins. Col 1:13-14

"God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating."

I love the way the Message puts that. "Dead-end alleys and dark dungeons."

You can be confident that God will complete the good work he started in you. Phil 1:6

"There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears."

Whenever I read this, I think about an illustration my mom likes to use. She compared our hearts to a cluttered attic or basement. We have a very large attic and every once and awhile we have to clean it out. Well when you open the door and look at it as a whole it's really daunting, looks like it will never get done. But if you take it section by section and do a little every day, it's not so bad. And God does that for us. He doesn't come into our dark hearts and flip the light switch because, frankly, I don't think we could handle it. Instead, He brings a flash light and illuminates one small corner. He helps us clean up the mess and when that's finished, he moves the beam of light and we go at it again.


You are a friend of Christ. John 15:15

"I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father."

Jesus is my friend. Isn't that just awesome? Doesn't that make you excited? The Maker of the Universe is your friend!

You are a child of light. 1 Thes 5:5
"You are sons of Day, daughters of Light. We do not belong to the night or darkness."

So, you have been chosen by God and adopted as His child. You have been forgiven and redeemed of all your sins. You can be confident that He will finish the good work he has started in you. You are a friend of Christ. You are a child of light. And those are just a few of the things that He says about you.