What is the Value of a Life?

This week has been another amazing week and tomorrow is weigh-in.  We’ve enjoyed our new rig, Max, and feel overwhelmed at our blessings.  And more changes will be coming on our horizon this year.  It’s exciting and scary.  Change is always scary for me.  It’s a leap of faith.  Never in our married life have we had so much change as we have this last year and even more is coming.  But it’s all GOOD.

I have been reflecting so much this week.  Reflecting on my past life and how different I feel and look today.  It’s like a dream.  I remember so perfectly the years of my life that I spent in pain, in heartache, and in self-loathing.  For so many years, I secretly wanted to  pass on to the next life.  I didn’t want to be here.  Many times in prayer, I asked God to take me for surely He wanted me and loved me.  I didn’t feel wanted here.  I didn’t feel valued.  I knew I was loved, I knew I am a daughter of God, I knew I have infinite worth... but I didn’t FEEL it personally.  I often wondered and asked myself:  

What is the value of a life?  What is the value of MY life?  What is the worth of my soul?

I wondered because my perspective was that I was NOT valued by my family, or by “friends” (which I didn’t have), and not even by myself.  My perspective was that there was so much more negative about me than positive - that’s what I felt everyone was telling me.  I did not see any beauty in myself.  For years, I think I leaned on the love of my husband to feel I had worth.  

When my mom died in 1993, it was the hardest time of my life.  She always seemed to feel that I was beautiful, even though I knew I wasn’t.  She always noticed the good things about me, even though I couldn’t see them.  Then she was gone overnight.

The last picture taken of my mother 

Brent, me, my dad, sister-in-law, and brother after mom's funeral

I found this entry in my journal just a few weeks after she died:

Wed. June 23, 1993

“I’m not enjoying life right now.  I try to describe how I’m feeling and what I’m going through - no one feels what I feel.  No one cares.  This is so hard!  I’m finding it hard to have the desire to live.  Everything is left on my shoulders and I can’t bear it any longer all alone...

I am so large, I am so ugly - I can’t stand to see myself.  Even when I feel like I do look good, I see myself in the mirror or picture and see how bad I really do look.  I am not a good wife - I don’t have enough time to be a good mother to my son.  It feels like no one is helping me.  I’m tired of this.  I long to feel loved and feel wanted - maybe even feel beautiful.  I don’t think I ever will.”

I remember sobbing as I wrote this entry.  I remember that heartache perfectly.  It’s now over 17 years later and I have been climbing my way out of the pit of self-loathing, and I am close to the top.  I’ve learned that all those negative thoughts and perspective were really just a BIG LIE!  I entertained the idea that I had no real worth and it started to become one of my core beliefs.  Then everything negative that happened in my life just fed that belief.  And it was and is a lie.  This has been a huge revelation to me recently.  Anything that feeds such a belief does NOT come from God and is not based on TRUTH.  So I am learning to STOP FEEDING that belief and to START FEEDING the belief that we each have infinite worth and value - that I have infinite worth and value!  And our value has nothing to do with the way we are treated!  It is a continual process to change these beliefs in me.

So when someone we love hurts us or betrays us, it has no bearing on our worth or value.  Or if we don’t have that special someone in our life or can’t find those cherished friendships it doesn’t mean we have no value.  That can be incredibly hard to believe but it is TRUTH.  The fact is, is that we are all human and we don’t really SEE the true value and worth of each other!  But our Heavenly Father DOES.  He is the one who can truly comfort us and fill us with that love and self-worth.

Words can’t do justice in expressing what it’s like to come up from that pit.  Those who have been there, and who are still there know and I pray anyone in such a pit of self-loathing can crawl out completely.  To look in the mirror and feel that my life does matter, that I do make a difference being on this planet and that my worth is infinite - it’s more life changing than losing the weight!  And to look in the mirror and feel like I am beautiful... words cannot describe such a feeling - Joy & Gratitude are a start.

So after many years of feeling that life just stinks and I’d rather move on... I am changing my song.  That is why LIFE IS GOOD.  Life is WORTH LIVING and even CHERISHING!  And our lives are worth celebrating.