I think I made that discovery around 1989 when I was 8.5 years old...
You see, this was the year that I started to realize that I was not "smart."
I didn't make good grades...in fact, I made TERRIBLE grades. I hated school! It was boring!
I would sit at my desk and draw or practice writing my name in cursive. I would day dream about anything that would come into my head... and I fell behind.
I remember being in the remedial reading class...and doing the "walk of shame" every day out of the classroom and into a class where I would look around and measure my own worth by the kids in my group.
"I am smarter than him!" "I am prettier than her!" "She is probably poor.." "He always gets in trouble.."
In my head, I would go around the room silently measuring myself up to the other children in my class-coming up with whatever I could about them to make myself feel better!
Reading was not the only thing I was bad at-I was bad at all subjects! It was pure torture to take a test and then pass it to the person behind me to grade...I was always humiliated for my friends to see the real me... to see that I wasn't smart.
If academics weren't enough-I also struggled with my weight. Looking back now, I want to laugh! I was never THAT chubby..but in my head, I was the biggest girl in school!
(When you have a dad that is 6'7 - you can guarantee that you will be tall..and I was!)
I was always bigger than all the other girls -and boys in my class and I noticed!
I like to say that while most of the girls in the 5th grade were playing barbies and wearing cute girl clothes, I was wearing my mom's clothes and carrying one of her old pocket books full of maxi pads!
I had no special talents, I wasn't athletic and I didn't play sports.
Fun for me, was playing barbies and watching "Stand up Spotlight" on VH1 with Rosie O'Donnell. I liked drawing pictures of weddings, studying STAR magazine for make-up tips and fixing my Aunt Robin's hair while watching Days of our Lives.
I felt worthless at a very young age. Although, I don't think I actually knew that I felt worthless...I think I just felt like I didn't fit the mold.
This is probably when this whole worth thing started for me.
I started searching for things about me that I could be proud of! I was funny and I was good. That's all I could be....and so I worked really hard at those things!
I thought that if I was funny, it would make up for the fact that I was a chubby little dumb girl who wore her mom's clothes.
......and maybe I wasn't the best athlete or the prettiest girl in school but I could be good! If I made people laugh and stayed out of trouble then I would achieve the approval that I desperately wanted.
Approval that we all desperately want!
I think that approval is simply the idea that we feel like we belong.
"Leslie,you are such a good girl-you never get into any trouble!" "Leslie, you are a good leader!"
"Leslie, you are a good babysitter-you are so good with kids!"
I thrived on those comments!
I wanted to be the girl that the mom's of guys my age thought was the real catch! I wanted to be friends with everyone and worked really hard to make sure I conformed myself into who ever I needed to be to make sure that EVERYONE liked me!
PAUSE: What was your "thing?" What was the lie you told yourself at a young age that you had to be to be WORTHY..what was the thing you did that got you the attention you wanted as a kid?
Was it your looks? Was it talent? Was it your intelligence? Was it perfection?
Finish this sentence: If I am not ________________ then I am not ____________.
For me, it would be "If I am not good then I am not deserving of love and acceptance."
You know what is funny? I think that I would describe GOOD as making people happy.
Long story very short, I have been growing this idea in my head about making people happy for nearly 30 years.
My worth comes from making everyone happy.
Every decision that I have ever made in my entire life has been to make someone happy.
Isn't that insane!??!?!?!? I am so deep into this art of being good that I often feel like it can't be changed.
I have taught too many people in my life that: "I am- therefore I make others happy."
It's an expectation that nobody really says outloud!
Oh hey here comes Leslie! ...She will make us laugh! Or
... Hey Leslie will you do my hair?
Hey Leslie will you babysit my kids?
Leslie, will do it!
Leslie will you volunteer for ______________?
Leslie will you do everything in the world for me .....and expect nothing from me but my I approval of it.
This is the pattern for my life and after 37 years I think I have finally reached the point where I recognize it!
I have a friend that asked me to name all the things that my kids needed to do for me to love them.
I thought it was a trick question.
I said "Nothing."
She smiled and asked "why?"
and I said... "Because they are mine-they don't have to do anything to make me love them."
She said: "Exactly."
What she meant was that this is how God loves us. WE ARE HIS! God doesn't love us more or less based on our performance!
Why is it so hard for us to accept?
We all believe (to some extent) that we are only deserving of love based on what we can do.
....and God says: "YOU are worthy of love because YOU ARE MINE."
Guys, can we stop this? Can we call it off!? Can we just stop trying to be who we think everyone wants us to be?
What would that look like in your life?
For me, It's freedom! It is free from the chains I have been holding onto for so many years BELIEVING that I had to be good-maybe even perfect.
It is embracing the wisdom of what has been and using it as a flashlight to guide us into a future that gives us permission to mess up! .....make people mad! .....being judged for who others think we are-because that is not how we measure our worth!
We can be free from all those things when we allow God to determine our worth by who He says we are! 100% loved and whole!
Amen? Amen!
Forward March!
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