My little girl was curled up on our ruby red coach in her cream pink onesie with wine colored sleeves. Her dark chocolate brown hair with blonde hazelnut strands was tousled and wild; matching her whimsical personality. Eden motioned for my attention as I scrolled through my I-Phone. I noticed her attempts when her little olive hand grabbed my thigh. I turned my head and saw she had leaned over so entirely that her torso was touching the couch while her legs were spread. She had bent over to see my face more fully. Eden’s blue-gray eyes glimmered with delight when I set my attention on her and she let out a happy squeal. Her apple cheeks lifted as she made joyful cooing sounds that chimed like instruments of pure bliss; the harmony of an innocent soul who has been truly seen. I fingered through her silky hair affectionately.
“Wow,” I commented to my husband who was sitting on the other side of her, “look how flexible she is!”
Stephen took his azure eyes off his phone and glanced at Eden before smiling, “yes, she is.”
“We should enroll her in gymnastics! That way she keeps her flexibility.”
“I think that would be good,” he agreed with a deep chuckle.
“It’s settled!” I announced, mostly to myself.
No sooner had I finished speaking those gleeful words, did a death-bringing thought darken my mind.
What if she looks at the other girls in class and feels like a failure?
A disturbing memory from earlier that week was added on top of the other disheartening thought: like dirty laundry piling on the floor of my mind. I remembered giving a beautiful young mom a tour of my in-home preschool previously that week. She had two adorable infants with dark sparkling eyes who needed care. We had all traveled to the classroom where Eden began playing with her kids. Out of nowhere her son pointed to my daughter and said with a puckish smile that resembled a European sprite-fairy, “she’s funny.” He was addressing her physical features.
The young mother simply repeated his statement with a question, “she’s funny?”
I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or not and so I shrugged off his comment and smiled at her to hide what was going on in my heart.
This was the first time Eden had ever been insulted in my hearing. Throughout my years in childcare, I’ve heard an earful of “slights” tossed back and forth from children’s lips to one another. I never wanted Eden to hear such words.
Thankfully my daughter seemed unbothered by his assessment of her and continued playing nicely with him.
A stab of dull pain came to my heart and I immediately decided against the idea of enrolling her in gymnastics. This all happened within a few short seconds of me sitting on the couch.
It’s amazing how our thoughts can spiral us downward isn’t it? How our hurts and insecurities and worries can raise a mountain of fear, when the circumstance is really a molehill?
Years ago I battled with a serious insecurity problem regarding ministry, marriage and life in general. I felt insufficient and totally unequipped to be a minister’s wife. Yet, in the same breath, I felt unnoticed, under-appreciated and outdated for the better part of two years. I recounted the many events I was invited to simply because people wanted to sit around Stephen, or the times where I would hang out with friends and then they became enthralled with receiving words from my husband. This seemed to happen weekly and after awhile I truly felt overlooked by everyone in my life. All the gifts that I knew I had from God seemed like rubble when I thought of my husband’s grace-gifts. I felt my talents were dross and so I slowly became silent, busy serving through cooking and cleaning…but never sharing the treasures of my heart with others. I felt like my gifts weren’t worth sharing… and eventually I felt as if I weren’t worth sharing.
As a newly wed consumed with the duties of wifehood and bills, I noticed my friends slowly began to bleed out of my life, and quite frankly, it was my fault. I was never free to hang out and I soon became too exhausted to engage in furthering relationships (with two jobs, school, a spouse and all). This left my soul starved of the deep friendships I had began to cultivate before marriage. It also further added to my insecurity since I was isolated from thriving spiritual relationships where we could, “encourage each other.” I found myself buried under the dirt of emotional loneliness.
During this time, five heart-shattering deaths occurred in my life. Three of them, involved family under 18. Because I had no one to talk to about my grief, I stuffed it down. My emotions were so tumult inside that my body began to manifest signs of trauma (one morning I sneezed lightly and blood started pouring from my nostrils. Other, more personal things were going wrong in my body). During this time, I worked as a prayer minister who also took crisis calls. So for almost six hours a day I would be listening to other peoples troubles and ministering to them. Unfortunately I carried their problems in emotional baggage after we said, “amen.” I felt low, incapable of handling life, and I certainly felt like a failure as a wife and minister.
The frailty of life plagued me with fear when I thought of how tragically my three family members died. The devil plagued on my low self-image and insecurity so cruelly during the thick of this tormenting time that I considered leaving Colorado, and consequently, Stephen (I had even gone so far as to search for last-minute plane tickets. I had it all planned out, I would ask a schoolmate to drop me off to the airport and tell them I was visiting family for a weekend. But really, I was running away with no intentions of going back).
Stephen tried to love on me through this sensitive time, but I couldn’t receive it. When I saw him, I saw someone who was better than me. I saw him as Mr. Right, and me as Mrs. Wrong (condemnation held my heart an arm’s length away). To be honest I still sometimes battle with comparing myself to Stephen…though much less so now (I pray by the time this devotional reaches your beautiful eyes…I will be over this by God’s grace). All my past experiences with insecurity began to floodgate my heart when I thought of Eden. I projected two years of my life on her through these thoughts…even though she was incapable of understanding “comparison.” Immediately I thought, “I never want Eden to feel the deep pain that I had through comparison. So I just won’t give her the opportunity to compare!”
Isn’t it amazing how our fears can rob someone else’s life of good opportunities?
Thankfully, God rescued me from the slippery mental slope I was falling down. A sweet thought came to my mind, bringing the soothing warmth of my Father. I remembered a foggy day in Fall where I was looking out my parent’s massive living room window. The road was wet with dew—like charcoal with melted silver. Auburn leaves were falling from branches like gold and red glitter. As I gazed outside, Father had spoken these liberating words to my soul, “I have never compared you to anyone Ashley. There is no place in my heart to compare you. I am not an earthy father who says, ‘why can’t you be more like your older brother or sister?’ You are completely accepted and beloved. Who you are, is a cherished daughter.”
When He had said this, I felt healing rise in my heart from the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). It dawned on me that day that God didn’t love me any less than Stephen, though I had unconsciously started to believe it. He didn’t value me less than Stephen. I wasn’t less favored because my gifts were more geared toward soft counseling than fiery preaching.
Even if the world recognized my husband’s anointing, gifts or talents faster than they did mine, what did that matter? Shouldn’t I celebrate his favor? I acknowledged that through these past experiences, I had let myself fall from the high ground of true security…God’s love for me. He alone was my source of inner self-worth, strength, protection and emotional healing (p.s: for months when I was in my 3rd trimester and no longer worked, God began to counsel my heart and help me cry the tears I should have cried when each family member passed. He helped me release the grief and He gave me peace in its place).
My mind turned back to Eden and I thought about the power of my voice over her as a parent. I could build her up in love and be a wall of security around her. I thought more importantly about the power of God’s love for her. Only He could truly build a fortress of love around her tender soul. He alone has the true power to call out her identity in beauty, grace and self-worth.
Prayer:
~I pray that you realize that you are incomparable to God. The same Father who spoke this to me, speaks this to you as well. May you never know the bitterness of feeling unvalued, but may His immense value for you be the bedrock of your soul. I pray you know the deep security of being beloved by Jesus and held by the Holy Spirit who is your Comforter. I pray you truly are able to receive the overwhelming love that God has for you. How high, deep, wide and long is His amazing love for you. May you realize that His love is an everlasting love that will never end. May you know the great peace of Jesus that has broken the power of death (because as a believer you are an eternal person). May you feel more surely than the clothes on your body that you will never be alone. There will never be a moment in your life where you are alone because Jesus is always with you. Even when you take your last breath on this side of eternity, He will be with you. And when you open your eyes again, you will see Him smiling…He loves you. He dearly prizes you. He treasures you. He cherishes you. He savors you. He rejoices over you. He celebrates you. He understands you. He is forever committed to you.