You Are Worthy

In my own journey to self-acceptance and finding my worth in who God says I am, I tried to find my worth in so many different ways. It started with thinking the perfect body would make me feel confident. People would think that I was really awesome and fun and amazing to be around if I was fit.

You know what’s funny? The more weight I lost, the more the number on the scale plummeted, there were more foods I felt “strong” for not eating, and the harder I felt I needed to diet and exercise, the more I actually felt worthless. I didn’t feel like a better version of myself, because there was always more weight to lose or more muscle to gain. I didn’t feel confident, and I definitely did not have it in me to roar.

Not coincidentally, I also felt further and further away from God, my creator, which also made me feel like I was less worthy. I wasn’t achieving the perfect body, and I wasn’t close to my savior. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. At times, I even felt like I had to belittle other people who were the “opposite” of me to give myself value. I would poke fun at my family for eating “bad, unhealthy” food so that I would feel better. This went beyond food too.

Feeling Worthless

When I was building my blogging business at the same time as I was really struggling with food, I looked down my nose at people who didn’t work twelve hours a day every day of the week. But my own hustle was empty. Really, I just felt like a failure because I was never achieving what I wanted, and I wasn’t living a fun, free life. I was miserable, alone, wrapped in fear, and constantly working, and I still wanted more, more, more. This is totally opposite of what culture and the media said would happen.

Now, I won’t lie to you and say I always felt worthless. The enemy knows what lies to tell us to give us a little high and restore that feeling of confidence and value so we continue chasing perfection. When I turned my hobby blog into a business and felt successful, I definitely felt worthy at first. Which, of course, only lasted so long before I felt totally burned out. When I jumped from man to man, I definitely felt value and worth tied into being desired. But that only lasted so long too. Of course, there were times when my body made me feel worthy as well. I can vividly remember a moment when my trainer at the time put a photo of just my midsection on his Facebook page and everyone commented on how lean I was. In times like those I felt confident and sexy and absolutely worthy.

But that feeling of value lasted about as long as that photo stayed up on his newsfeed, and soon I was back feeling like I could never measure up. The enemy knows this about us. He knows that we will chase something until we find that it is no longer serving us, then we begin to think there has to be more than this. More than searching for value and meaning in something outside of ourselves. And this freaks him out. Remember, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He does not want you looking inward, and he definitely does not want you looking up. He wants to keep you as far as he possibly can from God, just like he was doing to me at this time in my life. So he keeps you stuck, looking to the next thing to find your worth. Whether it’s trying some new fitness craze or diet, starting a social media platform and trying to get the most likes, or comparing ourselves to the other mothers at school, he knows how to keep us trapped, and that’s where I found myself.

Searching for Worth in the Wrong Places

Just like the Perfection Pursuit, trying to find your worth in what the world says you need to be just keeps you enslaved to the crazy cycle. You might not have looked to relationships or thinness. I also looked to my job, my bank account, and my number of social media followers. Maybe you look to similar things, or maybe it’s your family, education, or something else. Whatever it is, we are all prone to giving people discounts. When we give people discounts, we try to change who we are or force ourselves to do things that don’t make us happy because we’re afraid of the outcome if we don’t. Will people like us? What will people think? It all comes down to searching for worth in the wrong places.

The world thinks being worthy means having qualities other people recognize, that make them think we are totally awesome and accept us. At our very core, we just want to be accepted for who we truly are. We want to be usable. But for some reason, we feel like we need to become a better version of ourselves to achieve acceptance and have value.

Already Worthy

But what would happen if I told you that you are already worthy? Right here. Right now. It doesn’t matter if you weigh one hundred pounds or five hundred pounds, no matter if the other moms at school think you’re invincible or if they think you’re just barely holding it all together. Regardless of your relationship status, money-in-the-bank status, the size of your house, or size of your pants, you are worthy because God made you worthy. You are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Scripture doesn’t say you will be fearfully and wonderfully made when you achieve whatever thing you think you need to feel acceptable and recognized. It says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Right here. Right now. Just as you are.

Breakfast Recipe

Cardamom Maple Butternut Squash Pancakes

Butternut squash in pancakes? It’s a thing! Butternut squash is cooked and then mashed with oat flour, sticky-sweet maple syrup, and a double dose of spiciness from cinnamon and cardamom to make a hidden-veggie breakfast you are sure to love! Even picky eaters will not believe they are eating vegetables for breakfast. Meal-prep them ahead of time for busy mornings!

Ingredients

2/3 cup + 2 tablespoons mashed butternut squash (see note below)

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons maple syrup

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup oat flour (96 grams)[i]

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Heat a griddle to medium-low heat (about 300 degrees) and rub it with coconut oil or spray with cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the squash, eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla.
3. Add in the oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt, and whisk until well combined.
4. Pour a scant 1/4 cup of the batter onto the preheated grill. Cook until the bottom is golden and the sides begin to look cooked, about 2 minutes. Flip and repeat on the other side.
5. Top with butter, syrup, or sautéed apples!
6. Devour!

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

Yield: about 9–10 pancakes

NOTES:

To make my squash, I just cut the squash vertically down the center and scrape out the seeds, then place it cut-side down on a parchment paper–lined pan and bake it at 375 degrees until it is soft, which is about 45 minutes to an hour.

Pro Tips!

• Don’t turn your griddle on too far in advance of cooking your pancakes. This will cause it to become too hot, and the outsides of the pancakes will burn before the insides are cooked.
• Don’t have oat flour? You can put some rolled, old-fashioned oatmeal in a high-powered blender and blend for about 1 minute until fine and powdery.

[i] As with all baking, please weigh your flour to ensure accurate results.

Taylor Kiser is the blogger, recipe developer, photographer, and general mess maker behind the blog Food Faith Fitness, which aims to show that eating healthfully does not have to break the bank or equal bland and boring! It can be easy to make and totally delicious. She fully believes in living a balanced, whole life so Food Faith Fitness also focuses on fitness/nutrition tips and working on keeping Christ at the center of daily life. However, she also believes that moderation is key, so sometimes it’s okay to just go and eat a cookie! Her book Eat the Cookie (Zondervan) is on sale June 9.