Tipped in My Favor

They told me You would be for me
So now I need to know
Is this a love that can save me
Or say You will then don't?
Will You stay with me when nobody is around?
If this is real, then tell me now

Can you hold me together?
Can your love reach down this far?
Can you hold me together?
Cause without You holding my heart
I'm falling apart
Falling apart

Today is one of those days where I battle my worth. If you've read my blog entitled "Worth it" you know just what battle I'm facing. I know I'm valuable. But somedays I don't feel it. Or the evidence that Satan has lined up against me seems to be more believable than the evidence Christ has. 

Which is why I found myself drawing the above picture. Somedays I wish I was a better artist so that I could better express what I think Christ is trying to show me. Today in my quiet times I felt myself writing over and over, "I wish I had value." All the while looking through parts of my life and thinking, "I am nothing. I'm worth nothing." 

It was during my journalings that I began scribbling and the result was what is pictured above. I drew myself in the scale, surrounded by nothing because I feel like all I am is all there is. 

My girl friends and I come to this point often. I think it's easy for us to see all the times that people didn't fight for us, didn't find us worth it, didn't think we were worth keeping, didn't want to stick around, and that somehow determined that our worth was the equivalent of dirt. 
Or we look at the times that we were extra, a burden, a pebble in a shoe, unwanted, discarded, left. And that also determines our worth...less than dirt. After all, dirt can at least be useful for planting beautiful things and healthy dirt is worth a good price. 

But, at the same time, I know we are of some value on account the Lord went so far as to die for us. Which, of course, is not nothing, but sometimes it's hard to fight the lie that He loves us because He has to. Like a parent who is obligated to look after us or take care of us because, well, that's what parents do. 

And then we are told, God is not just a father figure, he is in love with you and wants to be your first love. As if that comparison is helpful, since those kind of relationships perfectly show how love endures all things... or not. 
It's one of those things where you want to be loved because they want to, not because they have to. 
I mean, you can tell when people do things out of obligation rather than desire. 
And perhaps that is God's way of telling us that HE wants us to love Him because we want to and not because we have to. But our religious growing uppings have taught us that we should love God because that's the right thing to do. It's a commandment. An obligation. A priority. 

But I don't want to be an obligation. I hate that. I hate being extra. It's one of the worst feelings in the world. It doesn't make you feel valuable when you're a burden. And maybe I'm still struggling through some of the darker times in my life when my attempts at pleasing the people of this world failed miserably and my dreamed up sandcastle accomplishments washed away faster than they took to create. 

There's a line from a song I love that goes, "May my losses show that all I truly have is you. Cuz all I truly have is you." It hurts in a good way when I hear it. Like when someone finds a knot in your shoulder when giving you a back rub. 

And perhaps we craft our identities out of dreams and goals and shape them into mighty ships to help us sail across the ocean of life. And then life becomes a storm and everything smashes into oblivion and, like Paul, we find ourselves adrift on the last plank existing, which turns out to be a beam from the cross we hung Jesus on. Because we built that into our lives somewhere. It was a part of us, but not all of us. But then it becomes all we have left. 

I think the ultimate battle of worth is knowing that even though I won't be worth it to some people, and that my value in this world is gonna be dirt from time to time, some how the scale is tipped in my favor anyways. By faith I can believe I have worth from some where, even though I can't see it with my eyes. 

I think the Proverbs 31 woman can be just as much of a spear as she is an admirable gem. 
We women in the Christian culture are all given this measuring stick to remind us of all the traits we may or may not have and we beat ourselves with it when we don't measure up. 
Or we let others beat us with it. That too. 

We want to be worth more than rubies because of our talents and abilities to sew things and make warm clothes, because of our independence and confidence and gifts in providing, we tell ourselves if we can laugh at the future and be creative and busy ourselves with various things, than we have succeeded and we may consider ourselves worth something.

But...it's not that. I don't think Christ put that in His word to be a comparison chart. But, it's there and we do. 

Some times I wish it said, "She loves Jesus." And that was the end of it. Cuz then I could be like, "Check! Yes, I make the cut!" And then me and all my friends could be like, "good enough" without any add-ons or extra features. Good enough by ourselves. 

And maybe that's just what Jesus wants us to see when He takes everything away. A gentle and quiet spirit weighs nothing and everything at the same time.