You Are Loved Beyond Measure

For the moments when you have forgotten

what was never yours to earn. 

There are so many ways we learn to measure ourselves.

By what we accomplish.

By what we earn.

By how much we give.

By whether we were chosen.

By how useful we have been.

By how well we held everything together when things were falling apart.

Somewhere along the way, it can become easy to believe that our worth rises and falls with these things.

That perhaps we are more deserving of love when we are doing well.

More worthy when we are needed.

More lovable when we are easy to love.

But love was never meant to be a measurement.

There is no scale capable of weighing the worth of a human life.

No list of accomplishments long enough to make someone more deserving of belonging.

And no difficult season, mistake, disappointment, or unfinished part of you that can make you less worthy of love.

You do not have to become someone else first.

You do not have to prove that you have tried hard enough.

You do not have to arrive here carrying evidence that you deserve a place at the table.

Perhaps there are parts of yourself you are still learning to understand.

Perhaps there are things you wish you had done differently.

Perhaps today you feel strong.

Perhaps you don't.

None of these things changes the truth.

Your worth was never a prize waiting at the end of some impossible test.

It was yours before you accomplished anything.

Before you proved anything.

Before you became useful to anyone.

And it remains yours now.

So if the world has been particularly loud lately—

if comparison has been whispering in your ear—

if you have spent so much time caring for everyone else that you have forgotten to include yourself among those worthy of care—

let this be one quiet place where nothing is required of you.

Come as you are.

There is room for you here.

And if you carry only one sentence away with you, let it be this:

You are loved beyond measure.