I sat in the warmth of the hot tub, letting the heat and bubbles relax me. I was watching 6-year-old Jessica, who was in the adjacent pool, just to make sure she didn’t need me. But the pool was chillier than I preferred, so I watched from the hot tub.
Jessica and I were there on a “hotel night”, which Jessica had chosen to pay for with the birthday money she had recently received (she loves hotels). She paid for the room, and I took her out to supper and let her choose our activities. She got to spend one-on-one time with Mom doing whatever she wanted, and her birthday money was put to good use making great memories.
Jessica called me to join her in the pool. I stood up in the hot tub, walking slowly toward the other side. Then, for some reason, I glanced down through the clear water at my foot. At that distance, and through the water, it looked elongated. Wider. Distorted.
And I thought about how our views of ourselves are equally distorted when we look at ourselves through the wrong lens.
As human beings, we’re wired to desire a deep sense of self-worth. It’s the way God made us. We all have this hole in us that we long to have filled. And that’s okay. The problem comes when we seek an indication of our worth through the lens of others’ opinion of us.
That’s because it’s a distorted lens. Other people are mere human beings, so even the most loving of them cannot fully reflect our worth to us. Then there are those whose lens is even more distorted—those who don’t love us but should, or those who, for whatever reason, don’t think we’re worth much.
If we take our cues from human beings, the best-case scenario is that we fail to fully appreciate how valuable we truly are. The worst-case scenario is that we learn that we’re worthless and unlovable.
I spent many years of my life believing just that, because I was looking through the lens of certain other people’s views of me. In my head, I knew that God loved me, but I didn’t really “get it” that He loved me passionately. I thought it was just a “God so loved the world, and I’m part of the world, so He has to love me too” kind of love. I had some people in my life who did love me, but I couldn’t really absorb their love, because deep down, I believed I was worthless and unlovable.
It took me most of my life to begin looking at myself through the lens of what God says about me rather than what others say. When I did, I discovered an incredible truth: what God says about me is far more than what I had ever hoped others would say.
God says that I am an amazingly incredible creation of His. Not just mediocre; not even merely great. No, He says I’m marvelous! The God of all creation, who created everything there is out of His vast imagination, says I am wonderful!
Yes, He knows that I’m a sinner. But He still calls me wonderful. He doesn’t hold my past sins over my head and berate me with them. He says He has removed them from me as far as the east is from the west, and now, I am righteous and forgiven!
God even dances and sings over me (see Zeph. 3:17, below). Elsewhere in the Bible, I’m told He loves me madly and passionately, and He has committed Himself never to abandon me or leave me in the lurch.
I know it can be hard to absorb these truths when our hearts have been deeply wounded by fellow human beings. But once I began thinking about them and meditating on them, somehow, the Spirit of God ministered to my heart and helped me begin to be able to absorb His love and truly believe the words I had formerly only believed with my head.
Precious mom, He’s longing to do the same in your heart, mind, and life too. He wants you to know how amazing you are. How wonderful. How beloved.
Maybe He’ll use family or friends to minister to you; maybe He’ll use a trusted religious adviser or counselor. Maybe He’ll use all of these. But you can be sure that He will commit Himself to reaching deeply and gently into your tender soul and beginning to minister comfort and healing to you.
Are you ready to take the first step? Ask Him to heal you in the way only He can. He longs to bring healing to your soul. And Scripture tells us that if we ask Him anything according to His will, He will do it.
So ask, precious mom. Ask…and let the healing begin.
1 John 5:14-15—And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (ESV)
Zephaniah 3:17—The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (ESV)
Psalm 139:14—I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (ESV)
Psalm 103:12—As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (ESV)