Awhile ago, I was at a retreat and received some prayer from a Pastor who was gifted in the area of prayer. I was expecting a huge revelation from God and maybe even to find some much needed direction for my life as I received prayer. However, the one thing that this Pastor prayed for me was to know that God loved me. His exact words were - “Lord, she just needs to know that you love her.” My expected “burning bush” experience turned out to be one of the most simplest, yet profound truths that has become the bedrock for my relationship with God.

Why has knowing that God loves me changed my life? As women, I believe that we tend to look for love in all the wrong places. We long for someone to prove to us that we are worthy to be loved. This may explain our preoccupation with waiting for our proverbial knights in shining armor. Our search leads us to all sorts of dead ends. The top three dead ends which I am all too familiar with are: expecting someone else to quantify your value, expecting your performance to prove your worth and hiding behind perfection or titles in the hopes that it will cover up any flaws that reveal who you really are. Let me break it down even further:

Looking to others: Think about what we long to receive from the people that we are close to in our lives. Is it yearning to hear your father tell you that he is proud of you? Or perhaps it is having someone tell you that you are beautiful, lovable and worthy to be cherished. The dead end in this alley is that as long as we depend on others to tell us who we are and what sort of value we have, we will forever be enslaved to a faulty and temporary standard.

Performance: Does the thought of failing cause you to break out in a cold sweat? If we make our competence the standard of our worth, then what happens when we fail? The problem with finding our worth in how well we perform is that there is no end to the cycle. When is it ever enough? Often those who follow this dead end, find that their relationships suffer and that they are unable to shut off their need to produce something.

Perfection & Titles: There’s nothing that will distract people from seeing the real you, when you have something as important as a position/title to hide behind. The particular identifying markers of that position become your own identity and it becomes so easy to let that be the source of your worth. The danger of course is that it becomes so easy to deceive yourself that you are not in need of God or others and this in turn allows you to very easily court sin in your life. In the end, you’re pretty much living a lie!

There’s obviously more when it comes to the many ways we tend to find our value in all the wrong things. What I am discovering as I reverse out of the dead ends that I’ve often found myself painfully stuck in, is that I need to reorient how I view myself and how I understand my worth entirely around the authoritative truth of God’s Word. This is when we can really learn from having that childlike heart and join in that simple childhood song that we are so quick to forget: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”

Every year, my husband always makes sure that our kid’s have a gift to present to me on Mother’s Day. Even though I appreciated a box of one of my favorite chocolates this past Mother’s Day, I was more thankful for the gift of some words my oldest son shared during the children’s presentation at church.

My son wrote a letter thanking me for being a great mom and listing why he thinks I am a great mom. I was surprised and overwhelmed at how specific he was. He read those words in front of the church and I sat in my seat listening with tears welling up in my eyes.

As a mom, not only do I feel I fall short many times because of poor decisions I make, but there are times when I wonder if what I’m doing is making a difference in the lives of my children. I don’t do things for my kids so that they will acknowledge me (although it does feel nice once in a while), but it is because I love them that I accept the daily routines of life in caring for them. In the midst of the daily routines, year after year, it’s a challenge to be faithful in all that I do, whether big or small, trusting that God will bear good fruit in the lives of my children.

My son’s words encouraged and reminded me to keep being faithful each day because I don’t realize whose lives the Lord can touch through me.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. - 1 Corinthians 15:58

Recently, my roommate came home with free movie tickets. We all decided to watch Prince Caspian - the newest in the Narnia series. Having been a little disappointed by the first one, we were eager to have our impression of the movie series be redeemed. We were more than impressed by the movie and each came away with our favorite parts.

*Spoiler alert: don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the movie yet and plan on watching it*

My favorite part of the movie was when Lucy faces off with the enemy on the bridge. She is the lone figure on her side of the bridge and on the other side is an enormous army. Lucy pulls out her little sword, which is more of knife, all the while looking as though she is taking a stroll and enjoying the day. There is a moment of confusion as the enemy attempts to figure out how to do deal with this young and somewhat unarmed little girl. Next, Aslan steps into the scene and stands next to Lucy and is able defeat the enemy.

This was my favorite part of the movie because it gives us a picture of what faith is to look like. Lucy is the one out of the four who is able to see Aslan, whereas the rest feel as though Aslan is being elusive throughout the movie. Lucy represents a faith that has a childlike certainty and purity to it. She knows that so long as she has found Aslan and so long as she is by his side, everything is going to be ok. I love this scene in the movie because it shows that even when you are facing a raging army and the odds seem completely against you, when you put your faith in God, there is a certainty and peace that comes with knowing that He is in control. In the end, Lucy didn’t even really need the little sword that she pulled out.

As I experience more in life, I find that it becomes harder and harder to maintain a childlike faith in God. I tend to become more calculating and “realistic” in my approach to life. At times it seems counterintuitive to me to have to become like a child in order to mature in my faith. But time and time again, whether it is facing new challenges, jumping off the cliff into the unknown or being stretched in my responsibilities, I feel that tug in my heart to deepen in my faith and to do so by becoming more and more dependent on God…like a child.

Late Monday night as I frantically looked through paper work attempting to file my tax returns, I realized that my heart was beating faster than usual and that beads of sweat had begun to form on my brow.  Needless to say, I was “hair-pullingly” stressed out by the end of the night because I also had a paper due the next day and a truck load of loose ends to tie.  I like to call this state of being, my crisis state where my body is on hyper alert, my mind is running at a 100 MPH and my subconscious is determining whether I should fight, flee, or freeze.  These are the times, I kick myself for being a hopeless procrastinator and discouraged perfectionist.  These are the times when I send desparate prayers up to God crying out:  help me help me help me!

I was able to get everything done - the taxes, the assignments, and squeeze in some time to rest as well, but I couldn’t help wondering about how I handle stress and worry.  I realized that I tend to go from crisis to crisis and granted the work gets done, the kind of toll it plays on my life over time is not pretty.  Worry is like a friend that you initially think is really great but in time this friend becomes the dominator of the conversation in your mind and binds you to an out of control relationship.

Something I’ve noticed as I meet more individuals in the counseling context is that women in particular worry a lot.  Women worry about everything!  From what to wear in the morning, what calories to consume or not to consume, what others are thinking about them and even worrying about worrying!  So as I sat at my dining room table on Monday in front of the computer and telling my friend called worry to just shut up and leave, I thought of the following things that is helpful to unworry the worried life:

Breathe - When things get out of control, in that moment you are seeing everything as a crisis.  Take a minute to just breathe and let your emotions settle down enough that you can begin to work things out one moment at a time.

Let go - Determine what things that are out of your control that you are worried about.  A lot of our worry comes from things you simply cannot control.  Remember that things that are not in your control are in God’s hands.  When it comes down to it worry is a direct enemy to trust.

Mess up - Worry is particularly a problem for those who need to do things perfectly.  Correction:  Worry is a problem for those who need to do everything perfectly.  Stop obessessing about the one detail that is not perfect and face the fact that maybe that one email can wait until the next morning or that maybe that getting something other than an “A” is ok (Gasp)!

Ask - Sometimes we are in such dire circumstances that we just need to ask for help from someone.  Asking is such a difficult thing for us because it reveals that we are in need and we don’t like feeling like we’re a burden to someone else.

Pray - As we turn our wills to God in prayer, and begin to take his truth to heart - that the God who feeds the sparrows and clothes the lillies of the field and holds our life in his hands, is more than enough to provide, strengthen and lead each of us according to His will.  In our worried lives, when we turn to God, what it really comes down to is abdicating our own version of how we think we can solve our problems and allowing him to take Lordship over our wills and our lives.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds in the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  Matthew 6:25-27