5 Days to Being Made Newናሙና

beheld // we find our worth in God's love for us

Childhood

Extended family dinners at our dining room table all sounded the same. Dishes clanged up against the glass cups close to one another as we filled out the table's added leaves. The dining room was situated in a quiet, dark side of the house facing the driveway with one long, lone, locked window. Adults talked about everything under the sun, embracing that old adage that “children are to be seen and not heard,” and we complied.

Meanwhile, my aunts and uncles opened their voices over politics, religion, you name it. My grandfather’s oxygen tank tube for his emphysema whipped around as he gestured wildly. My mom stepped in and out of the kitchen through the swinging door to check on dessert. My dad cleared his throat as his in-laws waged verbal war upon one another.

I knew we were not present in the conversation, we five kids. We didn’t have a place to agree or disagree, even as we aged. We only had a place of silence.

My parents divorced when I was seven, and meals around the dining room table were replaced with stacks of all five kids’ papers, my mom’s own schoolwork, and placemats that needed to be wiped down from microwaved fettuccine Alfredo splatter.

I have thought a lot about what it meant to be welcomed as a child. The unique identity of being made in God’s image and likeness. The space a child holds in a family, a family as boisterous as mine. The belonging of the lonely child, the welcome of the sad one.

I thought I was a good and welcomed child based on my behavior.

That my being loved by God was dependent on how quietly I could dangle my legs off those brocade chairs, how I could enjoy yams without enough brown sugar, no complaints. I thought God was handing out a behavior grade, and His approval of me depended on earning an A.

It took years to unravel this narrative that children were meant to be neither seen nor heard based on the premise that there wasn’t much to see or hear in kids. We were to be well-behaved, a good reflection on our upbringing, and not an embarrassment to our parents.

Now, maybe that dining room table had a lot more wiggle room than I remember. But you probably have your own version of this from childhood: an instance when your lovability was reduced to the number of your years, your lack of sophistication, or an assumption that you had nothing to offer. It could have come in the form of an unpleasant teacher or a challenging stepparent who would have preferred you weren’t around.

I invite you to walk with me back through the looking glass into that memory. In your replay, speak the words of Our Lord to that difficult adult from your past: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5). Jesus insists you’re worthy of welcome because He comes right along with you. We matter enough to hold space, be it silent or raucous, even as children.

As we meditate on today’s scripture selection, sit with Jesus’ discussion of being humble like a child. Perhaps when He speaks of this, He’s talking about that essence of humility that children possess: seeing ourselves as we truly are. The appearance of being well-mannered isn’t the same as having a happy heart. To draw close to Him and His Sacred, Holy Heart is to trust that His love for us makes us intrinsically lovable. And when we can release our own narrative of our position in God’s eyes being based on a performance grade, we can really enter into His kingdom.

And do you believe it, sister? Do you believe that the vulnerable, tenderhearted, maybe steel-faced and young you, can and should be welcomed? All the times we heard that we were too much, too loud, too big, or maybe, conversely, too meek, too soft-spoken, too shrimpy, we heard we were not welcome.

But that is not Jesus’ way. His way welcomes us as we are and invites us to more.

ponder

Think about the ways you measure your worth. Are you feeling like you are what you do? What you accomplish? What others think about your choices? Do you put those expectations of performative daughterhood on your relationship with God? This myth of earning God’s love is inaccurate. Set it aside today.

prayer

Heavenly Father, I praise You and I thank You for the gift of your unconditional love. I do not deserve it, nor can I earn it, but I joyfully receive it. Grant me the grace to appreciate being beheld by you as your daughter. Amen.

action

Today, say to yourself, I am worthy because I’m made in God’s image and likeness.