Worthy of It All

I struggle with feeling worthy.

Worthy of love.
Worthy of attention.
Worthy of my dreams.
Worthy of my talents.
Worthy of success.

Gonna have a Sophia moment but life has truly been like one of her most famous lines in The Color Purple: "All my life I've had to fight". And to be perfectly honest, I'm getting tired of fighting. I used to thrive on adversity. Negative energy used to be the food I ate for breakfast, to fuel me forward. But somewhere around the mid-30s, I began rejecting the negative energy; there was just too much of it around me. That protective shell I kept over myself cracked open and I got to peek at the vulnerability I held inside.

I've always known I had talents, that God gifted me with a voice for speaking and writing. And I've always had a case of the "if onlys": "If only I lived in LA then I could act in roles that weren't as limited as those in Miami"; "If only I had time to write then I could finish my book"; "If only I had the money to finish my MFA program then I could have a completed screenplay ready for production"; "If only I knew how to cook then I could eat better and get control over my weight"; "If only I hadn't been molested then I would not have gained weight in the first place"; "If only I hadn't been raped then I wouldn't have had to put my dreams on hold"; "If only I didn't have kids so early then I could have gone off and realized my dreams and real love before having to truly settle into adulthood"; "If only I had been more proactive in high school then I wouldn't have chosen Education as my major"; "If only..."

I think you can see I have quuuuuiiiiiite a few of these regrets weighing on me, holding me back. If I have a foot cemented in yesterday how can I move forward? Letting yesterday hold me hostage is comfortable; letting it throw up barricades to realizing my potential means that I don't have to do anything about today because yesterday proved my efforts would be for naught.

While I may not be a biblical guru, there is a story in the Bible that stuck with me through the years because it spoke loudly to me. This story talks about a man entrusting his servants with money known as talents. My summary is not going to do this story justice so you can find it here. The short of it is that each servant was supposed to do something with the talents, to use them. But one servant was afraid and hid his. When his boss returned and found out, he was so angry that he had him stripped of his talents. I don't want that to happen to me; I don't want God to determine that since I am not using my writing, speaking, acting talents for good, essentially drawing attention to how good God has been to me and giving Him glory, I don't deserve them.

I have to realize that I was chosen to carry these gifts and given the great responsibility of using them to help people. My stories, my yesterday are to help people through their todays, to turn them into yesterdays, to help people get their own feet unstuck in the uselessness of regret.

There's no more time for "weeping and gnashing of teeth". I've got too much work to do. When the time comes for me to quit this Earth, I need Him to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant". So it's time to break that cement and trudge forward until all the weight of yesterday is eradicated by the promise of today and the possibilities of tomorrow.

And that begins with realizing that I am worthy of it all.

Worthy of success.

Worthy of my talents.
Worthy of my dreams.
Worthy of attention.
Worthy of love.