Ready for the big reveal? YOU CAN’T. You are who and what you are no matter what size your waist or color your hair or if you can shoot a basketball or have a perfect score on the ACT. Or if you bombed the ACT. Your worth does not change no matter what anyone else says, particularly YOU!! (You know who you are, you self-shamers, masters of feeling inadequate, otherwise known as Asian or adoptive Asians.) Think of yourself as a piece of gold.

Worth a lot of money right? As of this writing, 1285 dollars an ounce. So, say I take that ounce and run it over with van, then my dog poops on it, then buries it in the yard, or even worse it gets stuck in somebody’s car seat. At the bottom of the Cheerios, smashed goldfish, and ice cream stains. Finally, I remember where I put it, but now I want to make it into bracelets for my girls and granddaughters. So I take it to the jeweler, and he melts it down. Then cools it and begins to make jewelry. When it’s all done, polished and beautiful, it probably looks like it’s worth more than the beginning value it had as a bar. But through that whole process, being smashed, pooped, “car-sat” on, buried, and then molten and finally created into something beautiful, that gold DID NOT LOSE IT’S WORTH. And neither do WE! We can be stretched, mangled, buried under life’s challenges, stuck under Cheerios and laundry and children and never ending to-dos and yes, even pooped on, many, many times…and our worth does not diminish. Somewhere along the process, we are being refined into something even more beautiful.

Here’s a little reminder of someone who understands her worth:

YOU’RE YOU AND THAT’S ENOUGH!

This is the famous Penny Bee, grand #1. She is delighted with life, her family and herself! When I think of her, I hear these words from Dear Evan Hansen:

You are worth the blood of the Son of a King. Don’t diminish His great sacrifice by diminishing your worth.

I firmly believe that CS Lewis is not talking only of our feelings for God, but our feelings for ourselves. He loves us relentlessly, EVEN when we are buried, covered in poop, stuck, stretched, mangled, and feel that we are beyond repair. And so should we.

So, Dear Friend,

Today’s going to be a great day! Tell me why?