Celebrating little things

I have a friend who battles severe mental illness.  Years ago, before all of this developed, he got his degree in robotics.  He was a brilliant man.  Then schizophrenia began to rear its head in his life and everything changed.

After years of treatment that destroyed his mind he is beginning to do better with recent medical discoveries.  It's been hard for him.  He struggles.  He's not always socially appropriate.  He knows it, but there isn't much he can do.  He's trying really hard to find a "new normal".

This morning he sent me this note in an e-mail, "I am worth something.......(smile)."  It's a profound statement for him.  He wonders constantly, with the illness he battles, if his life has meaning, if God can use him.  This brief note is a cause for celebration to me!  For the normal person we assume this is true, but not my friend.  He constantly battles self-worth and his place in the kingdom of God.  He frequently asks, "Do you think God can use me the way I am?"

This morning I'm celebrating little steps for a big man trying to walk with God.  Every life is worth more than all the gold on the planet.  Every person has infinite worth to God.  How wonderful that my friend is beginning to discover that in his own life.  Even the broken, the wounded, the hurting around us are worth more than you will ever know to God and he longs for them, for all of us to know it.

Let me rewrite a verse you know far too well to make my point today, "God loves you so much that he gave the most valuable thing he had to be able to show you his love and have a relationship with you."  Even if you feel worthless to the world, outcast by those around you, even if you feel unloved you are more valuable to God, more loved by God than you will ever know!