What's Your Stand Alone Worth

No really. I need you to sit with that for a second.

Not your worth as somebody's girlfriend. Not your worth as somebody's mama. Not your worth as the strong one, the dependable one, the one everybody calls when things fall apart.

You. Just you. By yourself. What are you worth?

Because somewhere between trying to keep everybody happy and trying to hold everything together — a lot of us lost the answer to that question. And some of us never knew it to begin with.

The World Has Been Lying to You

Since you were little, somebody or something has been telling you what you're worth is.

Maybe it was a mama who was too broken herself to pour into you right. Maybe it was a man who made you feel like you had to earn being loved. Maybe it was just life with one disappointment stacked on top of another until you just quietly started believing that maybe you weren't worth that much after all.

And you never even said it out loud. You just... started living like it was true.

Stopped dreaming so big. Started settling. Started shrinking. Started saying I'm fine when you were anything but.

Sis, I see you.

Here's What I Need You to Know

God didn't make anything throwaway.

Not you. Not your story. Not even the parts of you that you keep hidden because you think they're too broken for anybody to love.

He knew every hard thing you were going to go through before you got here. He knew every person who was going to love you wrong. Every night you were going to cry yourself to sleep. Every time you were going to question whether you mattered.

And He still chose you. Before the world even had a chance to get its hands on you, He already said that one's mine.

That is your stand-alone worth right there.

Not what he gave you. Not what they said. Not what your past looks like.

What God said.

And baby God don't make mistakes.

You Don't Have to Earn This

I know some of us were raised to believe that love is something you work for. Something you prove yourself into. Something you can lose if you're not careful.

That is not how God moves.

You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to show up healed and whole and pressed before He decides you're valuable.

You are valuable right now. In the middle of the mess. In the middle of the healing. In the middle of not even knowing which way is up.

You were worth everything to Him before you did a single thing to deserve it. And nothing that has happened since has changed that.

Not one thing.

Stand Up In It

So today I'm asking you to do something that might feel uncomfortable.

Stand in your worth. Not the worth somebody gave you. Not the worth you're still waiting on somebody to confirm. The worth God assigned you before you were even born.

Walk into the room like you belong there because you do. Set that boundary like you mean it because you're worth protecting. Let go of what's been diminishing you because you were never meant to live small.

You are not too much. You are not too broken. You are not too late.

You are exactly who God said you were. And that alone

is more than enough.

"God is within her, she will not fall." — Psalm 46:5

Send this to your girl who needs to hear it today.

Kashmire Kay, Shine Suga Shine