Hope After TraumaSample

"Self-worth"

For anyone that experiences a major traumatic event the question of self-worth becomes very important. Regardless of the event, it is easy to conclude that it was experienced either because of a lack of worth to others or, more painfully, a lack of worth to God. When others hurt us this pain can be internalized and tied to the insecurity of value. We begin to think that if only we were more valuable we would not have been treated this way. This easily develops into the belief that we must not even have value to God or he would not have allowed these things to come into our lives. We believe the voice inside of us that says, “no one cares.”

A misunderstanding of our own worth can lead us to do one of two things. Either we accept that we have no value and live or die as one who is worthless, or we fill our minds with empty “happy talk” that may prop up our esteem for a while but will ultimately let us down. Our value is not based either on what others think about us or what we think about ourselves.

We have value because we were created in the image of God to have a relationship with Him! We are intrinsically valuable regardless of how we feel, how we are treated or what we experience. This is a difficult thing to understand. We so closely tie the events of life to our worth that we have a hard time separating the two. What happened to you or how you were treated should not define you and has no bearing on how much God loves you! You are so valuable, in fact, that Christ paid for your sins so that He could have a relationship with you!

The “why” of life’s events may never be explained, but don’t ever believe that those events somehow define your worth.

You are loved. You are valuable. You have a bright future because the one who created you has a plan for your life that you alone can fulfill.