Joy Farrington shares about family and personal value

Joy Attmore

I have a history and a story full of battles with this whole idea of 'being worthy'. If I was to sit and tell you my story, at times it would reveal that my heart has struggled with a sense of worthiness. I would wrestle with questions like, am I worthy to be loved? Am I worthy to be their daughter, friend, sister or girlfriend? Am I worthy for this position or opportunity? As those questions stirred within me, so often I would respond with, I don't feel worthy.

Many times my sense of unworthiness would win and my following actions and decisions would correspond with this, which not surprisingly didn't make me feel any better. However over the years I have conquered a lot of those inward battles so those questions and feelings don't appear nearly as often. The main posture of my heart is, 'I am worthy.'

Last week I sat on my friend's sofa and suddenly found myself with big tears falling down my cheeks as we talked about fundraising for my next endeavour. Now, I'm not a huge fan of fundraising, but it has never before made me burst into tears. I found myself apologising whilst confused myself by my own emotions! When I don't know what my eyes or heart is doing the best investigative response I have found is to start talking and so I sat there verbally backtracking until I found the root of my tears.

Like anyone else, I come from a family that is full of beauty, quirks, dysfunctions and weirdness! A lot of the time we can go through life not realising that something is dysfunctional or has affected us negatively because it is normal to us; it's just the way life is and has always been. One of those dysfunctions that I've become used to is that I don't really know my grandfather. He's alive, well and fairly happy, I think, but we just don't ever see him, even though he lives no more than four hours drive away. I would love to have relationship with him, as would the rest of my family, but there is currently a rabbit warren of reasons beneath the day-to-day reality of things that is denying that.

As my verbal process continued on my friend's sofa, I realised that this lack of relationship with my grandfather had allowed an 'I'm not worthy' statement to take root. I'm not worthy to be invested in. If members of my own family do not seem to think that I am worth investing into then why would anyone else want to sow into my life? That was what was causing my big fat tears.

There is a delicate hope still in my heart that I will one day soon be able to say I know my grandfather and he is invested in me. Whatever the outcome of that relationship though, the truth is that I am worthy. I am worthy to be invested in, to be loved and to be known. I am learning this lesson afresh at the moment and choosing to be okay with the vulnerability of asking people to invest in my life because my worth isn't established by their response, it was laid out in stone before the creation of the world.

My dear friend sat with me and declared over my life that relationship with my grandfather would be restored. There is great power in the words that we utter and sometimes making declarations over our lives or our friends lives can help to bring real encouragement and breakthrough. As she shared her own positive stories of relationship with her grandparents and the inheritance that she had received from them, I found hope being strengthened in my heart that her story would be my story one day too. You see, I am worthy; my family is worthy; you are worthy.