Worthiness

         So many times have I been told of God’s love. So many times have I been told that God sees me as precious. Told that God loves me deeply. Told by others that they love me. Told that I am worthy of being loved. Precious.

         But I have a deep secret fear: I am not. I harbor a deep, dark fear that I am not worthy of being loved. And I am certainly not “precious”.  That to be loved I need to do something, to be something. To do more, because at my core I am not enough. And that terrifies me.

         I tried to ignore this fear. With the constant whisper of not being enough hanging over me; I hid. I hid from myself, running in circles till I was too tired and didn’t have time to be with me.  Last semester I took 21 credits, worked two part time jobs, interned with the youth group, taught Sunday school, and made it so that I had NO time. Of course I also felt that if I did more than maybe I could achieve being good enough. I was terrified of stopping. I thought I could ignore the whisper. But it just silently grew until every moment was tainted with this sense of failure. I felt like I was a failure because I wasn’t enough. And I was ashamed of myself. I was ashamed of who I was. And I never wanted anyone else to see that part of me. I was terribly afraid that someday someone would walk up to me and truly see me. And see my lack of value. That they would see my failures, my imperfections, my unworthiness and they would laugh and walk away.

         I thought that coming to India and doing “God’s work” would take away that shame and unworthiness. I thought that surely if I was doing a mission that I would suddenly become worthy of being loved. I mean leaving my life for nine months to work with kids in another country seems like it should earn me brownie points. But my secret cloud followed me here. Granted it was much quieter. A cloud on the horizon I tried to ignore and not think about. Sometimes I would go for days without seeing it and then all of a sudden it was on me again. I hoped that one day I would look at myself and be someone different, someone valuable and talented…someone worthy of God’s love.

         And then today (Sunday) a group came from Switzerland and one lady, Karen, spoke about how a 500 rupee note is worth 500 rupees if the note is crisp and fresh AND it’s still worth 500 rupees when it’s mangled and dirty. And that’s how it is with God. I am worthy to him, precious to him, and nothing I do can add or take away from my value. And that is something I know but it has always been so hard for me to believe. But today I was finally able to really admit that my value has nothing to do with how much I do or how I act. My value is in Christ.