My True Worth

I'm currently reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns".  It struck me how the girl Mariam did not know that she was living on scraps thrown her way by her father until she saw his house and how his other children lived.

Like Mariam, I was happy about a certain area of my life, until I was brought to an astonishing shock that I was living on scraps, leftovers, and throwaways.  Then I had a choice - settle for that, or move towards a different kind of life, one where I would receive as much as I gave.

Sometimes, in life, we are taken advantage of.  And we don't mind.  We are even happy to oblige, thinking that there is no harm done in the long run.  Until we wake up one day to find that we have given away our inheritance to become a scavenger.  Friends tell us that we deserve better, but we insist that we are where we're supposed to be.  We believe tenaciously in our dreams, not seeing reality for what it really is.  

I was struck by a line from this morning's Psalm reading:

"The great grow poor and hungry;
but those who seek the LORD want for no good thing."  (Ps 34:11, NAB)

I stayed with it until I heard an invitation to seek the LORD and to lay before Him my pain.  Surely, a sister told me yesterday, this cannot be God's last word on the matter.  So deep and massive was my hunger that I had forgotten how I got there in the first place.  In this verse I saw an assurance of my true inheritance as a daughter of God.  It was something I had never thought possible.  I was willing to stay on the sidelines, to feign happiness, to shun success.

Unlike Mariam's father, my Heavenly Father does not treat me like an outcast in His own household.  I am the one who thought I was an outcast, unworthy of a seat in His table, tarnished and blemished and forgotten.  During times of prayer, however, I hear His voice calling me as His own, and reminding me that He has a plan for me.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV)

The blurry image of my identity as His daughter is slowly gaining clarity again.  I pray that I may have the strength to continue to seek the LORD, to put my trust in Him, and to believe in His promise of a future and a hope.

I will not settle for scraps again.