Have You Ever Questioned, “Why am I here, and why am I so worthless?”
I have a sharp memory of being about 8 years old. It was a cold wintry day, and I remember being in excruciating pain over my entire body. It had been an especially thorough and vigorous beating; and I lay on the heating vent crying and seeking warmth to ease the pain, not only physically, but more importantly, the hurt in my spirit and in my soul, or so I thought.
As tears ran down my face, I remember asking, “God, why did you make me? Why did you make someone so wrong? Everything about me seems to be wrong, to be bad and fallible.” I asked this repeatedly, desperate for an answer.
Exhausted with sobbing, emptied, for now, of the deep grief and abandonment, I lay very still and quiet. And as I softly breathed, a very sparkly gold and white light seemed to encircle me and a voice I believe to be the Holy Spirit said, “Everything is the way it is meant to be. You are here to help others, to walk with God.” And immediately I felt an immense sense of peace and divine love encompass my body. Since that day, my purpose has become to show up and serve those that come into my life.
However, you must understand that the sense of being wrong didn’t go away with this desire to serve. This anomaly within me was a battle waged for a very long time. It has taken a much soul-searching and work to grow out of this perceived wrongness within me. You see, it had become an established belief, enforced so many times and for so long, it became the truth that my brain recognized.
Now, I know better; there is nothing wrong with me and there never has been. I’m exactly the way I am supposed to be, worthy to exist as God’s creation, as all of us are. We are each an extraordinary individual in our own right.
I am fascinated with the workings of the mind. The primitive brain that was created in us, and in all animals and mammals, and the knowledge that God also gave to us humans the prefrontal cortex. While many of us walk around believing there is something inherently wrong with us, that we just don’t quite fit in anywhere, consider that it’s simply a thought that our brain has been offering us over a long period of time. However, the ennobling truth is that God has given us the prefrontal cortex to assist us in overriding that primitive brain, allowing us to know the truth that we are worthy… to live, to love others, to receive love, and especially to love ourselves. It is a beautiful goal to reach for, because when we lean into who we are and accept everything about ourselves, we accept our past as it is exactly as it should have been. Rather than fighting it, or reliving it daily, or resisting it and pretending it didn’t happen and we should not talk about it. We love and accept our whole self, we’re capable of anything!