"For
the Lord your God is living among you. He is mighty to save. He will take
delight in your with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He
will rejoice over you with joyful songs"

-Zephaniah 3:17

I grew up in a Christian home, and knew the Lord at an
early age. All was good and well until I went to middle school. My 6^th
grade year, my parents got divorced...and it was nasty. The effects of all of
the law suits and fighting going along between my once happy parents lasted for
at least another two dreadful years. By then, my 8^th grade year, the
effects of all that had happened between my Mom and Dad took a devastating toll
on my Dad. He attempted suicide by overdose that October, and my brother found
him near death and had to rush him to the hospital.

This is the beginning of when I began to struggle with my
self-worth. Everyone who knew about it would come up and assure me that it wasn't my fault. And I believed them at that
point, however, it got much worse.The next May, he attempted to kill himself
again. After the second time, the guilt came like waterfall. It was quite
difficult to not blame yourself for someone's constant depression and suicidal thoughts
(especially your father), when they themselves are blaming you for it. Little
comments he would make like, "If only you came over here more or called me more
I might not be this way" tore me apart. For the next 2 years he was off and on
suicidal and depressed and would openly tell me what he would do to try to kill
himself next, tell me what I was doing wrong, and say many other things that a
father should never say to his daughter.

I began to tear
myself apart from head to toe. Whether it was my looks, my personality, what I
did in my spare time, I was NEVER
good enough. Not pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough, athletic enough, and
I definitely wasn't a good enough daughter. I also began struggling off and on with
an eating disorder at this point.

This mindset followed me for years, but nobody knew.

But because of the Lord and his sweet grace, he still
intended to use me, despite my inner turmoil. He called me to go to Kenya for a
month on a mission trip the summer after my 10^th grade year. I tried
had overcome a lot of my 'image problem' with myself in preparation for this
trip and I was doing the best I had been in years, but three weeks before I left,
my Dad tried to commit suicide again, but this time I was there to find him.

I'll spare you the details, but after finding my daddy
nearly dead...I was in no way emotionally ready to leave the country for a month
not knowing what would be waiting for me when I returned. Nor did I feel ready
to share about a love that is so wonderful when I didn't feel any love towards myself.

It was hard, but I still knew for some reason I needed to
go. On that trip, the Lord specifically called me to be his hands and feet to the nations, but he showed me who I was, and how to find my identity
in my Him alone. Not in my looks or even my personality, but in Him. His
love disarmed me and left me raw and broken. It set me free from the lies Satan
puts in my head about myself;

            Rejected

                        Ashamed

                                    Guilty

                                                Unimportant

                                                            In
Despair

But they spoke truth. I am beautiful. I have many gifts.
I am needed and wanted. I bring God-encounters to
everyone I meet. I am a woman with a growing ability to receive His love, a
woman that is learning more each day about His love for me so that I can love
others more...and love Him back the most. I am His Beloved.

I know who I am, because Christ has whispered it into my
ear. I am the precious daughter of
the Most High. I am the treasure in the heart of the Lord. I no longer struggle with finding my worth in
fleeting things, because my worth is found in my Heavenly Father alone.

I
am His Beloved.