I Am Valued

I am His (Part II)

Find him in the Hollow

Hello, darling! Welcome back to my blog! I hope you’re having a great day today! Today, I am going to continue on with the I am His series. I want to talk about your value and share a little bit about my struggles with seeing my own value.

To begin, let’s start off with a backstory, shall we? Growing up, a lot of my identity was rooted in the things people thought or said about me… and also, what they didn’t say… Looking back on it now, it was because I didn’t value myself as a person. I didn’t like who I was, what I looked like, and I didn’t know how to change that so I relied on the things people would say about me to fill my emptiness. The older I got, the more the insecurity grew and eventually was magnified because of social media. Back when Instagram was fresh and new, I cared SO MUCH about how many likes I got and how many followers I had. I would get so embarrassed if both numbers were small. My friend and I use to go on verified accounts and comment on their most recent posts either LB or FB which means Like Back and Follow Back. Other accounts would then see your comment and either follow you or go and like all of your pictures and you would have to return the favor and reciprocate the action. Hopefully that makes sense! Anyways, my friend and I got hundreds and hundreds of followers and likes because we would do this religiously! We would go on photoshoots and would make our lives seem so perfect and we would photoshop our pictures so we would be “prettier.” It was a mess. I WAS A MESS. HAHA! I’m kinda embarrassed to admit we did that but hopefully it shows you how desperate I was to be seen and add value to my life in a way the world says. God has been showing me so many places in my life where I may feel empty inside so I can bring it to light and deal with it so I can move on from it. He’s been emphasizing what I like to call the Hollow Place.

My best friend, Alyssa Sapp, sent me a podcast the other morning talking about Hollow places. What does that mean? Hollow places are the places you feel most empty, ashamed, insecure, timid… Everyone’s hollow place is different. They are specific to your story. That podcast talked about how to take the hollow and fill it with God. Sarah Jakes Roberts explained how God wants to take your hollow and match it with His hallow and be the space filler in your emptiness. We all have hollow places. Let me explain a few of mine.

*SIDE NOTE – God is so stinking good. He knows what you need to hear when you need to hear it. He knows how to clarify what you’re feeling when you’re at a loss for words and have none to explain it yourself. And He will use the closest people in your life to speak through to you. ILYSM ALY! <3

I use to be one of those girls who needed words to fulfill me. I would thrive off of compliments because I didn’t know how to give them to myself. I would rely so heavily on positive affirmations from others because it would prove that I was on the right track in life. And when something negative was said about me, it would literally kill me inside and I would take that little opinion and magnify it 100x over, replaying the words in my head until I subconsciously believed those things to be true about me. I would even treat people well not because they deserved it, but just so that I can get treated well in return; just so they can reciprocate the action. Words meant the world to me and I would allow what people said or thought about me to dictate how I lived my life. Why? Because I didn’t really value myself.

Recently, I was talking to God and asking him why things have been happening the way they have been.Why is it that even though I love people, I support people, I help and encourage people, they decide to not show that in return. I told him my problem was that I would love and love and get nothing in return. He told me to let what I deem as my “problem” bring GLORY to His POWER! What does that mean? That means I continue to love no matter what I get in return to showcase the power of the living God inside of me. That even when I feel unloved, not valued, unimportant, or overlooked, I will not stop loving people and showing how important, valued, and loved they are so that I can bring Glory to Gods power in my life! I can overcome anything! We are called to love like Christ loves us, not because we want to be loved in return. My value doesn’t come from what people say about me, it comes from what GOD says about me. Proverbs 139:14 says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God tells me that I am worth more than rubies in His eyes (Proverbs 31:10) and that He loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3).

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ANOTHER EXAMPLE! Soooo, sometimes, I use think what I do adds value to who I am. A lot of times, as we all know, scrolling on social media does more harm than good. You get caught up in likes and followers and other people’s highlight reels. Just this year alone, I’ve seen so many people I graduated high school with get engaged or even married, get pregnant and start a family, travel off island to other countries, get their college degree and buy that brand new car, live the dream life. I felt that my life wasn’t as great as their lives and inevitably, I began to lessen my value as a person. Allowing for my brain to be filled with so many lies: You’re not important. You’re not successful. You’re going no where. I felt empty inside. 

Ladies and gentleman, God is here to tell you that your value doesn’t come from what you do or aren’t doing. What you’re accomplishing or not. Just like what I posted on Insatgram the other day, getting your first degree after 21 is still an achievement. Being married after 30 is still beautiful. Starting your family after 35 is more than possible. Buying a house and moving out after 40 is still a boss move! Don’t let people rush you with their timlines. Everyones story is different. God has you where he has you for a reason! Trust your process. One of my friends recently said that it’s not always about getting to the top of your mountain but the journey you go on to get there! Let what you deem as your problem bring GLORY to HIS POWER by being faithful ’til the end! 

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Lecrae once said that if you live for people’s acceptance, you’ll die from their rejection. How true is that?! Your worth and your value are not found in what people say about you, your education, your career, relationship status, jean size, bank account, instagram followers. Your worth is found in Jesus. And when I found my true value was wrapped around what Jesus said about me, that’s when the game changed. Too often did I look for my value in a world that did everything without Jesus being at the center. Too often did I speak death over myself. My life started to be better when I started to declare the things that God says about me – that I AM VALUED, that I HAVE WORTH. My perspective on life itself changed when my view of myself shifted. I became the kind of woman who knew that what God’s word says about me and my life was far more valuable than the words or opinions of the world.

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But like I said early, everyones story is different. Maybe your hollowness comes from a place of abandonment. Maybe you feel not valued as a person because you were molested or abused. Maybe you’re like me and you deal with anxiety. Maybe you’re depressed. I know these are hard topics to discuss and I want to be extremely sensitive to the matter! But whatever it is, it’s time to decide to give it back to God and to allow for Him to fill the emptiness, to be your source of worth. It’s time to allow God to bring healing and wholeness back to your life. To be the one you find your value in. Allow for him to show you just how valuable you are. You are CHOSEN. You are NOT FORSAKEN! In the book of Psalm, it says that God can restore the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds (Psalm 147:3). Our pain and emptiness aren’t hidden from God, rather, He offers us relief and healing if we show Him our brokenness and invite Him into our pain. All you need is faith. Just like Sarah Jakes Roberts said in her podcast, “God is going to take your hollow and match it with His hallow.” He’s going to fill the space that was left by feeling abandoned, by being molested, by feeling depressed, anxious, unloved, unappreciated.

The words your parents can’t give, the words people say or don’t say, the way people treat you, the struggles you’ve been through – molestation, abandoned, depressed, anxious, unloved, unwanted, He’s here to tell you the truth about you. He’s here to tell you that that those things DO NOT define you. Where people are unable to fill the need for you and are unable to fill the emptiness you feel inside, God is there to fill the space; to fill the gap.  Where people will fail, God is there to uplift. He is here to lower your past so that your present and future will elevate!

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