The world needs you! Yes, you. Don’t give up. Don’t check out. The world needs you.
Despair starts with a lie that seems like a feather but feels like lead.
Maybe the deceiver whispers in your ear that the things that others have done to you make you worthless, without value, ruined, not good enough.
Perhaps he parades an endless line of ‘perfect people’ through your life to jab at the tender skin of your self worth and whispers words of comparison in your heart until you believe them (she’s so skinny, her nose so perfectly shaped, don’t you wish you could wear a dress like that and look like she does).
The deceiver curdles your hope and taints your life with little lies that cloud your future. He seeks to replace your hope with a confusing abyss of uncertainty.
He promises relief from his accusations in the next drink, pill popped or joint smoked—and you find relief—temporarily. He whispers in your ear that if you just sleep a little longer, build the walls around your heart a little stronger, that the pain will go away.
Don’t do it. The world needs you. Yes, you. Don’t give up. Don’t check out. The world needs you. God created you for a purpose. You might feel as if you’re drowning under a weight of regrets about the past and uncertainties about your future. But God created YOU.
When the Creator of the universe looks at you, he doesn’t see what you see. He doesn’t listen to the lies of your accuser (really, there is nothing that a twelve-year-old girl can do to make her ‘deserve’ to be raped).
God sees through the lies and knows the truth—He loves YOU. He created you for a purpose.
And maybe the lies of the accuser started you down a path you never intended to walk—one full of mistakes and regrets that slam like prison doors behind you as you stumble along.
You are not the sum of your mistakes or bad decisions or what other people have done to you. You are the sum of the potential that God places on your heart. (tweet this)
The world needs you to live another day—you might not see that right now. But I’m here to tell you that it’s the truth.
If church people or Christians have let you down or caused you hurt, remember that they too are people—sinners on the same road you travel. We all stumble and fall when we take our eyes off the Light (and I confess that I’ve stumbled all over the place in my cranky Christian complacency).
I don’t have all the answers. But this I do know. The world needs you. God has a purpose for your life—one with hope and a future. He will restore the years the locusts have eaten.
And me, the sometimes cranky church lady, I’ll come alongside you and do the best I can with my eyes fixed firmly on the Light—not on my own insecurities. I’ll plug my ears to the voice of the accuser who tells me there’s nothing I can do.
I can always pray. I can listen. I can tell you again that the world needs you. God created you for a purpose. (tweet this)
