Worthless Check

I was just thinking about the times in my life I've felt like a worthless check. Written with sincerity and at face value only to return stamped "insufficient funds." Perhaps you can relate, perhaps not. If so here are some words of encouragement. It's odd because through it all you feel like yourself. Everything that you were yesterday you still are today. To you. In retrospect that fundamentally says it all. To you. In being true to yourself you found self worth, self respect and a love for yourself. You recognized something that was not only valuable to you but more so to others. Worth. Honest to God and man worth. Now there are exceptions to every rule. If people constantly told you that you walked like a duck and quacked like a duck you would have to ascertain that you were a duck. Or another way of putting that is how my grandmother would have said it, "everybody ain't lying." In those case you'll have to do a self diagnostic to find where the problem lies because there is a good probability that it lies within you. There will be the other times. The times when the people you know, the people you love and the people you respect will fail to see your worth or your worth is insufficient by their standards. Your differences depreciate your value. I've come to believe that for the most part, it's not done maliciously. Everyone has a basic need to be understood. Most feel that the people who are most like them will understand them better than those who are not. Those that are the closest to them are targeted first for assimilation. Sadly not much thought is given to your thoughts or feelings. It is because of your attachment to them whatever it may be that it is assumed that you will just...conform. This is not a twelve step program on what to do about that. Just a simple three things to remember. Know it when you see it. Love yourself as God loves you. Know with every fiber of your being that you could NEVER be a worthless check. Jesus paid it all to assure that.

Born From Pain

I was just thinking, pain is as much a part of living as breathing. It is true that we as a people respond to pain in different ways. Some of us can take our pain and use it in useful and positive ways. We can use it as a form of expression. When looked upon by others it may seem clever or easy but expressing pain in a positive manner costs. To fully express it, you open your heart and display your soul for possible ridicule...more hurt. I'm reminded of Dr. Maya Angelou's life. Who knew what the sum of being raped at age eight and being mute for six years of would produce? Others take the opposite approach. Their pain breeds more pain. Instead of expressing it they choose infect others. We've all heard the adage "misery loves company." They feel as if, if someone else is experiencing pain they aren't alone in theirs. There are primarily two forms of pain. Physical and emotional. Physical pain can be dealt with on one of two levels. Tolerate it or find a modern medical marvel that will either alleviate or cease it. As I think about physical pain, I'm reminded of Genesis 3:16 which reads... "Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;..." as a mother I have known no greater physical pain than child birth. The average mother will agree with that statement but with that pain there is nothing more precious than the face of her new born child. Only women more specifically mothers can relate to this so I'll move on. Most everyone has experienced heartache in some aspect. Maybe it was the loss of a loved one or the death of a relationship. Perhaps someone introduced you to pain either by commission or omission or or in other words something they did or did not do. Purposely or not. The thing is that in this life there will be pain. It is as necessary as darkness. I'm saying this to say that without darkness we would be unable to appreciate the light. Without pain we would not be able to fully perceive good times. It's not the pain that defines us but what we do with it. How we overcome it. As I think further, I think of how sad it is that some people can only appreciate God in times of sadness and despair. Even sadder that some can't appreciate Him even then. I'm here to tell you that everyone experiences pain at some point in their lives, don't feel alone in that. I'm also here to tell you that some of the most beautiful things were born from pain.