Coffee for Your Heart

Linking up with Holley Gerth today for her "Coffee for Your Heart" series on Wednesdays! She can be found at www.holleygerth.com. Today's prompt: “What encouraging words do you want the people you care about to hear as they begin a new year?”

I remember you. I remember you sitting there in the almost empty sanctuary watching the kids practice for the upcoming Christmas concert. I remember the feelings of condemnation, of not measuring up. I remember feeling that every bible study leader in that place was some sort of spiritual Goliath that had something special that could never be yours. I remember the list-making....a person sitting there making bad decisions, church attendance less than stellar, bible study nonexistant. Most of all, I remember the voice. The voice in your head saying things like, "You are such a loser. You will never belong here. Nobody likes you. You have NOTHING to say or offer anyone." It was such a vivid voice, more life-like than anything you had seen on TV.

I always say that if I struggle with something that I am not that special, not that profound. If I have felt like nobody, a nothing, with nothing to say and nothing to offer, I am not alone in that. And so, I would encourage anyone with that same voice to knock it flat. Shut it up. It's a lie. For anyone sitting in a sanctuary, a Sunday school class, a bible study, reading a blog....you.belong.here. Right here. Right now. For such a time as this. You are loved and valued and special. Just you, just as you are. I can't wait to meet you there.