I gulped deep.
I’d tried to take it in my stride, tried to muster all the magnanimity in my being to be gracious.
But over time, I grew ridden with bitterness.
In tears, I confessed to a mentor my disappointment.
You see, two years ago, in a team I led, when everyone but myself received national recognition for their sacrificial contributions to the outbreak, I hurt inside.
Yet, I knew- God knew.
What it broke was my reliance on awards, and what worldly applause was doing to my soul.
“Sometimes our gifts are actually destroying us, and our gifts and strengths can undermine the greater good God is laboring to bring forth in our lives.”- Ruth Haley Barton
Through the crushing, came a humbling. A deep reckoning of my own wretchedness that awards were my way of shoring up an insecure, fragile self.
Just days shy of 2023, a friend stumbled upon a certain piece of news and informed me that I had been awarded The Public Service Medal by the Prime Minister’s Office.
But my heart did not swell the way it would have before.
It wasn’t that I didn’t cherish it. But my soul, no longer clinging onto external validation, had found its own anchor- as a mother, wife, child.
The award didn’t make me better or worse. It didn’t validate who I already was without it.
If you, like me, have wrestled with the anguish of feeling less, and groan at the prospect of a new year filled with unfulfilled hopes, know this- God remembers you.
He has been aware of the dark nights of disappointment and bitterness of your soul in the years gone past.
Yet, He is ever present, He is always working.
And when you emerge from your tunnel, you’ll find yourself free from that man-made cocoon of never-ending lust for more. You’ll be satiated by a deeper river.
You’ll know who you are.
As you begin your new year, my hope is that you’ll find a deeper security in who you already are. You are loved. You are cherished. You are favored.
Most of all, God remembers you. 💛
**Clothes by Paradigm Shift Label
**Photography by Josh TZM