Valuable and Loved

I have been up for hours and almost done with my first cup of coffee (yes, I had to reheat it several times). During the school year, I get up early to make the boys breakfast before they drive off to school. Justin is a Senior in High School and Kyle is in his Junior year.

I get up early because I want to see them before they leave and make sure they have some food to start the day with. Please don’t imagine that I am an all smiles and tenderness in the morning –  June Cleaver, I am not. I stumble out of bed, try not to be too grumpy at my usually grumpy teenagers and do my best not to burn the french toast and sausage. I am not always successful.

Some days Bobby gets up with me and some days he gets up for me and I sleep in. Today, he slept in. 

We get up early because our boys are precious to us. Time with them is valuable and it goes fast. They are worth getting up early for, staying up late for and everything in-between.

As I sip the last cold drops of coffee from the bottom of this old Starbucks cup, I am remembering a sign I saw at a Starbucks Store above a display of their new cups about 10 years ago.

It said:

Without compromise

Made thoughtfully, beautifully

To last and to love

I remember sitting in that store reading that sign and hearing God’s gentle whisper to my heart – “Do you know how precious you are to me? How valuable you are? Are you not worth more than a cup?”

You see, it is easy for me to see how valuable my boys are to me but it is not so easy for me to see how valuable I am to God. The sabotaging internal narrative I have lived with is “If you did more, had your life together more, looked better, was better using your gifts, then you would be more valuable to God”.  It is a weed that grows out of the “I am not enough” plant in my soul.

The running theme of God’s relationship with me is Him continually and relentlessly pursuing me and changing my internal narrative from “I am not enough” to “I am lavishly loved just as I am” and “I must be better and earn God’s love” to “I am wholly loved by a Holy God who only asks that I believe and receive Him.”  I am in the lifelong process of replacing the lie with the truth and learning to live it out. I don’t have anything to prove because this truth was proved by Jesus on the cross. 

We have a saying at our church: Jesus is what God is like.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:29, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

I love the Message Translation of the Bible because it often puts the meaning of the text into words I can understand better because it is more like how we talk today.

It says, 

“What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays greater attention to you, down to the last detail – even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You are worth more than a million canaries.”

My precious friend, you are worth more than a million canaries or a million Starbucks cups. 

God’s attention is on you and He knows, down to the smallest detail, what is going on in your life. 

He will take care of you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be bullied by self- doubt, or listen to the lies of the enemy. 

In His eyes, you were created:

Without compromise 

Made thoughtfully, beautifully

To last and to love

If Starbucks, who sells coffee, feels this way about their cups – how much more does your Father in heaven feel about you?

You are His precious daughter. You are worth getting up early for, staying up late for and everything in-between. Your Father simply wants to be with you, whatever you are doing, even if you are grumpy.

You are valuable to God and loved, don’t let anyone or anything steal that truth from you.

by Cindy Grasso