soil has value

I am a bold personality. I am not afraid to do a lot of things, but one thing that terrifies me is this: asking for what I deserve. It confuses me when it bears its face, but the fear shows up nonetheless. Recently this has been bombarding me over and over, so I have been forced to process through what causes this fear. I realized, it is the idea that I don’t deserve what I do. It is the idea that I have no value. I don’t realize that I tend to think this way, and it is more extreme in some moments of my life than others, but it is a lie that I find myself giving a voice far too often. This lie is where my fear gets its feet. Naturally, someone who believes they are no better than soil will feel they can’t ask for a flower. Here is the interesting thing about soil- we can't have flowers without it. When we buy soil, we are buying a combination of minerals, air, decomposed matter, manure, and so on. Sounds really valuable, right? Maybe to some but not to me. Digging a little deeper, (no pun intended), soil is essential in the process of growing beautiful, healthy flowers. It is the mode of transfer for all of the most important nutrients that every flower needs. Now that sounds like something of value- it is crucial for the growth of life. Soil is soil, it doesn’t change into another form to gain value, you simply change your perspective on what it is. You change your wording when describing it. Metaphor over, I am sure you can see the parallels. We cannot change who we are, what has happened to us, what we have done, or the things hidden away that we are so ashamed of. The only thing we can change is what and who we listen to about what those things make us.

“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.”

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord, benevolent, perfect, powerful, creator, thinks we are worthy of song. He himself will sing to us, over us, because he thinks we deserve it. We absolutely don’t. That is not what God sees, though. He sees a redeemed being whose value is unable to be expressed in mere words and who deserves to be treasured. How, then, can we be afraid to ask another person to treat us like we have value if our Savior believes this of us? This is something I struggle with still. I find myself afraid to accept when others try to make me feel special and eager to ask for less than that in my relationships. My mom told me something that prompted me to write this, to re-evaluate my value and where it comes from, so I wanted to share:

We teach people how to treat us.

Teach them that you have value, and teach them that you have value because of a God whose truth is never fading, whose love is restoring, and whose life saved your own. Ask for what you deserve.