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ayah-eha:

“The word of a friend

is more hurtful

than the sword of an enemy.”

-bamsi

Years ago, I bought my daughter a really cute jacket at the mall. It was a hoodie made of a cuddly fabric with cream, lavender, and mint green horizontal stripes. The jacket zipped up in the front and was well crafted, stylish, and simply adorable.

When I bought it, I felt like the price on the tag was a fair one, so I gladly pulled out my wallet and paid the retail amount. I was a kid in a candy store on the way home – fully anticipating a shriek of happiness from my little bag-of-beans when I gave it to her.

I wasn’t disappointed. Kennedy loved her new coat, and I was pleased with my purchase. Happy dances all around… until a week later, when I saw the same jacket in the same store at a greatly reduced price.

Are you tensing up with me?

Suddenly, I felt schnookered! As soon as I saw the red line on the price tag of the unsold coats, everything changed in my mind – Kennedy’s jacket wasn’t worth what I paid for it.

When we speak of the worth of something, we often consider it to be a relative term. One that has shifting factors. For example, the jacket I bought was thirty-nine dollars, and a week later it was nineteen ninety-nine. The jacket didn’t change, but its’ perceived worth did.

Now, consider the worth of a woman. Are the factors that determine her value based upon variable and shifting factors or are they based upon fixed factors? Seems to be a silly question, doesn’t it? Fixed, of course! But, if the answer is so glaringly obvious, why do we struggle so much as women with feelings of worthlessness? Why do we walk around feeling like that red lined jacket? I think it’s because we often allow variable earthly factors to define our worth.

There are so many reasons why women feel worthless:

Because they’ve been abused (raped, molested, physically abused, verbally abused…)

Because they’ve been told that they’re worthless (by a parent, spouse, sibling, teenage child, or another…)

Because of choices they’ve made or that have been made for them (divorce, infidelity, abortion, promiscuity, eating disorders, addictions, uncontrolled anger…)

Because they’ve been cheated on (infidelity, internet affair, pornography…)

Because they’re co-dependent (conclude their value based upon other people – “If my husband isn’t okay, I’m not okay.”)

Because they don’t collect a paycheck (stay at home moms that have left the work force, laid off employees, displaced employees, those on disability…)

Because they’ve battled an illness (unable to care for family, perform basic home duties, participate in ministry or Bible study like they once did, can’t drive, cook…)Unfortunately, the variable factors that we use to define our worth are endless. Many of us feel worthless. Why? We’ve felt ignored, invisible, insignificant, useless, undesired, ugly, unloved, or forgotten. We girls are emotional; broken in many ways. Great portions of our identity and of our personal value are wrapped into combustible packages of emotion – how we feel about this or that. The truth is, our worth has nothing to do with our feelings.

Trust me, I’m not going to try to convince you that I know everything there is to know about feeling like a woman of worth or about being a woman of worth. In fact, the more I know God, the less inclined I am to pretend to have life or faith figured out. I’m constantly tempted to define my worth with activities, emotions, and accomplishments.

What I DO know is this: because of Jesus Christ, I’m a woman of highest worth. Not because of anything else. We are His daughters, made in His image, precious in His sight. In light of this, we need to set aside feelings that diminish our value, and embrace our proper identity: Child of the King of Kings.

We need to associate the word worthless with the word lie. {Tweet this!} That’s exactly what it is, a big, fat lie!

God wants every one of us to experience hope and healing in Christ and have an appropriate sense of self-worth.

So let’s go back to Kennedy’s new coat for just a moment. Imagine walking into God’s department store. There on the rack, you spy a coat that is just plain fabulous – I mean stop-you-in-your-tracks fabulous! One-size fits all, the tag reads. Yeah, right, you whisper under your breath. Then you flip over the price tag and it’s crazy expensive – way beyond what you could ever dream of paying. Like, if you added up every dollar that ever passed through your hands – then multiplied that by ten thousand – that kind of expensive. Then imagine the store owner walking over to you, slipping the coat off the rack and onto your shoulders.

“It’s a perfect fit,” He smiles.

“Sir,” you manage with a whisper, “I could never afford such a coat. This is meant for royalty and I’m, well, just an ordinary girl.”

“Oh precious woman, this coat is made especially for you, and the price has already been paid in full.”

As the owner straightens the sleeves on your arms and adjusts the collar around your neck, you notice his hands – nail pierced hands. And suddenly you realize that this is the covering you were meant to wear all along.

You are precious and highly valuable in the eyes of the One who sees. And you never, never, never have to worry about being on anyone’s bargain rack again.