Dear Sweet Girl Who Thinks She Isn't Worth It

Dear sweet girl who thinks she isn't worth it:

It hasn't been so long that I don't remember.

Not so long that I don't feel the pain as if I were still living it...blinking back tears as memories wash over me.

It only takes a moment to bring me back.  

And in that moment my breath catches--the air suddenly seems thin--my lungs struggle to take it in.

I remember.  

---

I was daddy's girl.  Sitting on the kitchen stool reading Little Miss books while he stirred spaghetti sauce.  

Cleaning his shop for a dollar, then running to meet the ice cream man while he watched through the window.  

Riding shotgun, windows down, singing at the top of our lungs "...and they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out of the rain...boom, boom, boom".

I remember like it was yesterday.

And I remember the moment my heart was shattered and my innocence lost to a vast sea of self hatred and doubt.  

I wanted more than anything for my daddy to spin me in circles in the living room while Dean Martin crooned about selling his trailer and how he ain't got no cigarettes.  

I wouldn't even roll my eyes this time.

But there was no going back. 

A single decision too late to change.

The first boy who ever pretended to like me.

I hardly recognized the fear-filled voice as my own.

I shouted at first but it didn't take long before my resolve was gone and fear gave way to shame. 

Shame that took the fight right out of me; those same pleading words now barely audible as they escaped my lips.  

In the end, silent tears were all that fell. 

I was 14.

---

All my life I had fought against lies I told myself:

I wasn't good enough.  Smart enough.  Pretty enough.  

If I was he wouldn't have left us right?

If I wasn't me he would have stayed out of jail, turned his life around and treated mama better right?

If it wasn't somehow my fault I wouldn't have had to go stay with grandma while mom started over in a new town, fell in love, and had another baby.

I never really felt okay--never felt that I belonged anywhere.

I finally see it though.

I know why I had to stay with grandma for just a little while so mama could work long hours and put some money away to take care of me. I thought she had abandoned me but really she loved me enough to let me stay someplace safe for a short time instead of spending hours every day lonely, crying by the pick-up door at daycare.

I understand that maybe my biological father really did think that I'd be better off without him and I see how God used that emptiness to make room for my daddy. A daddy who stayed with me, sang to me and listened to my endless chatter!

But I didn't see it in time.

I didn't see it before I convinced myself that if a boy didn't love me no one would.

I didn't see before deciding that I wasn't worth it..time and time again.

And so the story goes.  

Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to tell the whole story but for now, know that happy endings do exist.

Remember that Jesus died for you and it is never, ever too late to dance in your Father's arms.  

You are so worth it.

-Cassi