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Prostituting Myself No More


After a season of reflection, I came to a sobering conclusion.  I prostitute myself out all over the place.

Giving away the most valuable and precious parts of myself.  Laying myself way out there without seeing my true value.  Leaving the loves of my life and toying with the hope of being something more.  Someone valuable.

Allowing others to put a price tag on me.  Compulsively jumping in to be exploited only to leave feeling minimized and rejected.

I smile.  Recently, I begged my youth to value themselves as a precious creation God wants to lavish His love on.  I want them to know God wants to do "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work 

within us," (Eph. 3:20)

However, my own actions and choices show the value I see in my life.  Why do I not treasure and hold near the gifts, abilities and calling God created in me?  What is it that makes it so easy for me to throw myself away?

Let me clarify what I am saying.  I believe I am God's and the cry of my heart is to live my life completely poured out for the people He loves.  The broken, abandoned, hurting and the lost.  I believe I am to decrease and "die to myself" so He can live through me.

However, God does not contradict Himself.  He encourages me to "Be still and know that He is God" and to "Love Him with all of my heart and strength."  
He designed and created boundaries to free me to love unconditionally and knowing I need to keep myself in a completely monogamous spiritual relationship with Him.

God does not need anything from me to love me.  He does not manipulate, exploit or ask me to sell myself out.

You see, it is my faulty perception of having to earn love that keeps me bound in a life of spiritual, emotional and relational prostitution.

That's it.  I am prostituting myself no more.  

I am fully accepting the value I have because of Christ in me.  I fully embrace the gifts and calling He has placed in me.  

I may not be able to change the world or even my neck of it, but I can love God, my family and those I connect with passionately and fully.  They will not have to wonder where my heart is or where my loyalty lies.  They will not wonder whose cause or whose life I am in.

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