52. YOU MATTER!

On different occasions, while going through different challenges in her life, a lady once wrote:

“It hurts to know that everybody expects you to help but nobody cares about YOU, how you’re feeling, what you’re going through, what you’ve been through, what you’re up against, your challenges, your fears, your heartaches, your disappointments, your insecurities, your problems. Everybody expects me to always be doing something for somebody. Yet, none of them give any thought to me. In short, none of them care.

I long to be where I am loved, cared for, appreciated, treated with basic human respect and dignity, understood, encouraged, empathized with, regarded as precious, valuable and therefore cherished, as having something to say that is equally important to the contribution of others, supported and afforded compassion. These are needs that I have but which have been withheld or neglected. Father in heaven, please provide for these needs as only you can, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Some people are just there to pull down, discourage, demotivate and to make you feel like you didn’t do well enough, you’re not good enough, you’re no good, of no value and incompetent. In short, they are there to fulfill the devil’s agenda, which is to kill, steal and destroy. They don’t give constructive criticism. This you know because they don’t ever or rarely ever give you compliments when you’ve done well. In those key moments, they are silent, withholding their support, withholding their endorsement. They never approve of anything you do and are only voices of criticism, to rush to point out anything bad or which they eagerly perceive as bad. They are quick to tell you where you have failed or where they detect weakness but have not a word to say where you have been a success or done excellently and well. They don’t ever encourage, uplift, support or comfort. Only the opposite. Know the people in your life and what role they serve in it. They are either for you or against you. Nobody really stands on the fence.

Imagine going through your whole life, ALONE. Nobody understands you, nobody cares to, nobody has any time for you, nobody appreciates or loves you and nobody wants you around. They wish you would just disappear. Imagine living life as an irritation that people merely tolerate and no matter what you do, they just wish you were not there and that you did not exist. The pain of knowing that your existence is a burden can be crippling. Year in, year out, no matter how much you hope for a change and no matter what you do, one thing remains the same: You remain ALONE. It is as if your life script was written for this to always be your reality. The overwhelming loneliness in a world of so many people, can get to you sometimes. How can you bleed for so many years and nobody care? The whole world, including your family, withholding love from you and content to leave you in your ‘aloneness’, can be so painful BUT GOD.

I’m beginning to think that, left up to us, it is impossible for another human being to love, appreciate and value me. It is not that I am not love-worthy or appreciation-worthy, it is just maybe that I don’t have the capacity to be loved, appreciated or valued. No matter what I do therefore, be it in the home, with family, at work etc., it is always met with the same response, no matter how much I put effort into it: indifference, slight, scant courtesy, dissatisfaction, the sense that I am not good enough or what I did was not good enough, unimportance, of no significance.”

Can you identify with this lady? Are you constantly demeaned and made to feel as if you have no worth? Clearly, what this lady wrote was as a result of how the people around her were constantly making her feel. Her wounds obviously go deep. She is the definition of broken in spirit.

Thankfully though, she came to her senses. As a Christian woman, she learned to rely on the Word of God which is true and to shut out and reject the lies of the enemy. She realized that the people who, for many years were doing things to make her feel the way she felt were used by the enemy, to try to make her feel suppressed, stuck, worthless and in so doing, derail her God-given purpose and steal her joy.

For, in the Bible, she was reminded over and over and over again (contrary to their voices, actions and behaviour), that, like all human beings, that she had worth and God-given dignity and that therefore, how she had been treated was not of the Lord. She was reminded that Jesus loved her very much, so much so that he died for her sins, that after she believed on his resurrection and confessed that he was Lord (which she did), she became irreversibly a child of the King, had royal lineage, was now accepted in the beloved and precious in his sight! She mattered to God and to his son Jesus Christ, so much so that, even when people made her feel forgotten and forlorn, he promised in his faithfulness to never leave her or forsake her.

Choosing to side with truth and to reject people’s lies is admittedly, still a struggle for her sometimes, as, despite what God’s Word says, people and situations come ever so often, to try to make her think the opposite. Even her own inner voice sometimes tries to make her believe that she has no purpose, no worth, no future and that due to how she has been treated by so many people and how so many things have not worked out in her life thus far, that it must be that she does not matter.

However, no matter how compelling the voices, she has decided to cling to the truth of God’s Word. For, the Word of God tells her, “…Let God be true, but every man a liar…” (Romans 3:4).

In light of this and the truth of God’s Word (which always reminds her of how special she is and that God loves her with an everlasting love), convinced, finally, she recently wrote:

Darling girl, you matter. Don’t you ever forget it. Your hurts matter, how you feel matters, the things that bother you matters, your story, your difficulties, your issues, your fears, they all matter. Never again let anyone make you feel that you don’t matter because like every other human being that God has graced to be alive, YOU MATTER!

Tell yourself what has been the truth all along. As a human being, a woman and a Christian, you have always mattered. You have always been important to the one who created you and redeemed you, despite the words, actions and inactions of people to the contrary.

When you’re treated with scant courtesy, condescendingly or as if you have no worth therefore and you are made to feel insignificant, not good enough or of no consequence, tell yourself the TRUTH, which is supported by the Word of God. Say:

“I MATTER. Any attempt to convince me otherwise is a lie from the pit of hell.”

Whoever you are that is reading this, I hope to God that, despite all the devil has thrown at you, that you too will come to the realization if you’re struggling with your sense of worth, that you matter. No matter how much you may have been rejected in life and how badly you’ve been treated, Jesus loves you and wants you. He wants you to surrender your heart and life over to his Lordship (if you haven’t yet done so) and he wants to take your life and give you beauty for ashes. He is able, despite the naysayers, to help you see your worth, so that you understand that you DO matter.

If you are already a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, his resurrection and have already confessed with your mouth that he is Lord, then to empty yourself of the lies of those around you or with whom you have interacted in life thus far, spend quality time in God’s Word the Bible and allow it to heal you, as it impresses wonderful truth upon your heart. It will open your eyes to understand that you have been under attack and the source of those attacks. Through that same Word, which is the sword of the spirit, along with the other weapons of warfare provided by God to all his children, you will also learn to successfully dispel the lies of the enemy, so that you can go on to be ALL that God wants and intended for you to be.

(Written on 11th March, 2023)