The New Year had just begun, I was working on my usual weekly to-do list task while pondering what this year of 2020 was possibly going to bring my way. (And it is not unusual for me to have wondering thoughts in the middle of doing a mundane task.)
That’s when I heard the Lord drop the word, “Worth”, into my heart. I had never chosen a specific word to use as my motivation for growth and reaching a fuller potential for a year before, but here I was rolling around in my head my word for the year.
I will be honest, I at first did not fully understand why this word was the word I needed. I mean, I knew that I struggled with having self-worth, but I did not know what the Lord was up to with this.
We are now deep into the month of February and now I get it, I get why this is my word for the year. And understanding why has motivated me to embrace this word and allow change in my mind and heart to take place.
I have been through some tough stuff in my life, and after a collection of trying and exhausting experiences piled one on top of the other, I have been left with some heart wrenching effects. Losing my self-worth, my identity, my ability to find value in just being who I am was the most life impacting result.
We have different negative markers in our lives that we can look back on and pinpoint the time or times we had changed and lost pieces of ourselves. And all because of what happened that was so frightening and devastating for us.
For me, it was the summer of 2014. Something happened to me that caught me off guard, as these things always do, but left me traumatized and full of fear and distrust with myself. I can still look back on that evening it happened and point to it and state, “That’s when it happened. That’s when I would never be the same again.”
I lost a lot in that one evening, and it would take me years to realize all that I had lost.
The most important thing that I lost was my self-worth, which led me down a horrible road of depression, anger, and despair. I could not forgive myself for having allowed myself to be pushed to burnout. I could not forgive myself for the HUGE transition my husband and I had to make to return back to the States because of my newfound issues with mental health.
I am here today to share that I have recovered a lot from that event. And now it is time for me to go deeper with my healing and to really work on improving my own self value and worth, beginning with really forgiving myself and letting go of what happened.
I have been really diving into how to get not only our self-worth back, but even our confidence. I am learning a lot of things in this growth process and I am thrilled to be sharing with you the things I am learning and applying to my life.
I will be sharing more with you on this focus word of mine, but in closing out this blog post I want to encourage you to search out a possible “word” you want to hold onto for this year of 2020 that will bring you what you need to move towards your growth, healing, and transformation. Let me know in the comments below your “word” of choice for this year!