When we’re desperate to be valued
By Sheryl Boldt
The phone is quiet. Perpetually quiet.
Your eyes well up with tears as you pray for it to ring. Desperate for an indication that somebody cares. Desperate to be someone’s BFF.
Unfortunately, your obsessive need for others to want to spend time with you sabotages any real chance for healthy relationships. And your angry responses to their perceived rejection only perpetuate the cycle.
You feel helpless. Your gaping need screams louder than your ability to calm down enough so that others can enjoy your company. The huge chips on both your shoulders, including the why-didn’t-you-return-my-calls chip, don’t encourage warm and fuzzy moments at family gatherings, either.
I’ve been there.
It wasn’t until my sister, Teri, suggested I focus more on loving others – rather than demanding them to love me – that things changed.
When we validate others, not only do they benefit, but a wonderful healing takes place in us. Especially when we show love to those who aren’t easy to be around. Those who wear their own chips on their shoulders.
We can’t truly appreciate others, however, if we’re convinced that no one loves us. Thankfully, Someone does – deeply and completely. And because Almighty God loves us so magnificently, we can love others.
Look at this powerfully beautiful verse: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19 ESV).
Because God loves and cherishes us, even with all the chips we shoulder, we find comfort, security and stability in Him. In gratitude, we can stop dwelling on our bottomless need for validation and ask our heavenly Father to show us people who also need to feel loved.
An act of kindness or even a simple smile can change someone’s day. Everyone, every single person, has a need to be noticed, valued and loved. Even nitpicky Aunt Marion, prettier-than-me Christina and nosy-church-member Agatha.
Caring about others is the best way to overcome feelings of rejection. It might even make our telephone ring. But on the days when the phone seems silent, we can pick it up and reach out to a person who needs to know someone cares.
The more we realize that we are extraordinarily loved, the more our lives will become complete – and less lonely. We might even become someone’s BFF.
Sheryl H. Boldt writes fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. Her weekly devotions have appeared in newspapers across the South since 2014. She is also the author of the blog, www.TodayCanBeDifferent.net. Connect with her at [email protected].
