You are not the names given to you in childhood by parents or relatives or friends who spoke out of anger or frustration or disappointment or resignation.

You are not your grades in school or the level of your education.

You are not the house you live on or the job you go to every day or the care you drive or the clothes you wear.

You are not the one who got fired or couldn’t save your marriage or keep hold of your friends.

You are not your addictions or struggles or fears.

You don’t have to be what all the magazines and songs on the radio and television programs and movies tell you you need to be to be successful.

You are loved, more loved than you could ever possibly have thought possible, by the God who made EVERYTHING.

You are worth the price God chose to pay for you, which was the most outrageously lavish price ever paid for anything ever– the life of His only perfect Son.

You are a child of God. You are the bride of God. You are His beloved.

 You are the one He shouts and sings over and dances around in the night while you are sleeping.

You are the new name He is giving you that is already written on a white stone, carved out so it can’t ever be removed or erased or taken away.

If you’re me, you probably will read all these and be reminded that what you feel about yourself in the dark moments is not the truth. What you think others think about you isn’t the truth, either. Both of those things will lie to you.

You are what God has declared about you in bold red print. You are the promises that are as true as the God who gave them.

As the song says, You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You’ve been remade.

Don’t live as worthless throwaways anymore, but as the priceless and loved and treasured children of God that you are.