(Joyful mysteries Note…this Friday’s writer has chosen to remain anonymous.  Names have been changed in order to protect anonymity. But Her story is important.  Her story is real and raw.  And she is a beautiful human being, much more beautiful than she gives her self credit for.  I love her very much, and am grateful that she chose to use her words and her real, and share with us today.)

Validate: ˈva-lə-ˌdāt   to recognize, establish, or illustrate the worthiness or legitimacy of .

Validation matters. Your hurts matter. Your triumphs matter. You matter. So why is it so hard to feel fulfilled? I believe all insecurity drives sin. Insecurity comes from pride, and depending which side of the horse you fall off of, the need for validation can eat you up.

Let me explain.

When a child gets hurt often times a simple kiss on the respective owie suddenly makes it go away. Every parent knows this trick. I have kissed some serious floor burns that seemed to be pain free in the instant I kissed them.

That kiss is validation. That’s all it is. There is no real miracle occurring, but it is a simple act of validation.

From a young age human nature desires to be validated. To feel worthy. To have our hurts recognized to be legitimate. And while I think this is human nature, I think the very need for validation is something the enemy uses to incite unrest in some many people’s lives.

If I am to survey severed relationships in my life, I can see where validation plays a role in every single one.

Affairs? Seeking validation. Break it down.

Someone feels not good enough. Not wanted enough. So they step outside their relationship to find that feeling of being wanted. Of being enough.

Friends think you are not making enough time for them?

The need for attention from someone comes from that same place of needing validation. Of being made to feel worthy. Of your time. Your emotion. When it is not fulfilled, hurts arise.

A child falls and skins their knee?

The physical pain is small, but perhaps their pride is damaged for a moment. The one thing to help satisfy that? Validate it. Kiss it. Recognize it. And suddenly it is not so bad.

So how is the cycle broken? How can I beat the need for validation within my own life?

I was reading my Bible this morning and the Holy Spirit lead me to a verse.

Galatians 1:10

 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

We are vessels designed to serve our Creator. The closer I draw to the Father, the more fulfilled my life is.  I find purpose. I find belonging. I find validation from the very person who designed my being.

I think the cycle is shattered, when we follow Christ.

Because in Him I don’t feel the need to compare my life to everyone else around me.

In Him, I feel completely confident in myself worth regardless of the laundry pile on the couch, the stretch marks on my body or the fact I lost my cool while grocery shopping with 2 feuding children and a crying baby all needing my… validation.

In Him, every single one of my hurts, big and small, matter.

My oldest child, R, was born during a trivial season of my life. I was seeking approval. I was wanting so desperately to belong. To be someone’s priority. And so I made choices I felt would bring me to that place. So I ended up single and pregnant at 19.

Validation.

R has been given a unique gift in my husband. While biologically he is not R’s dad, he has assumed the role in such a graceful way, that most people who don’t know us well, would never guess it. On our wedding day, R, on their own accord, started calling my husband Dad. R doesn’t have a step dad. R has two dad’s. One to live with and one to see occasionally. But sometimes I forget. I don’t know what it must be like to feel rejected by your own father. To feel not good enough. To feel you aren’t worth making time for. So while I am validating all of the other emotions, hurts and needs I see on a daily basis. I forget about this big cloud of rejection lingering in the background.

We attended a church service recently with a guest speaker who has a divine calling for healing. R was adamant that we attend wanting to witness God in action. To see a prophetic gift at work, is something truly miraculous.

As we watched people approach the altar for prayer for everything from busted knees, to TMJ, R watched with an intentional stillness. R watched, and then turned to me and said felt called to go to the altar, but wasn’t sure why. ‘I know I am not sick, Mom, but I feel like my spirit needs something. I am going up there.’

As the speaker approached R, I watched my child began to weep. And then it happened. God showed R the validation needed most. R couldn’t figure out what it was God wanted to give that evening but He wanted to validate a broken heart. The room was packed and I was struggling to hear, but as I watched my crying child take a seat up on the stage I heard the man with the microphone call out a broken heart. He acknowledged that this broken heart was from a dad, and that God wanted that to be healed. A complete stranger to us, used by God, to create within a child healing. Validation.

From that very moment moving forward, I have seen a dramatic change in the way R handles life. The way R carries childhood looks completely different. There is a new-found peace surrounding my child. And through all of this I have witnessed the  most important lesson on validation. Nobody could provide that validation like the Father. It had to be Him. It always has to be Him.

The more thought I gave it, the more I realized that the need for validation has greatly controlled my own life. In so many ways…

During my 10th year of life I was sexually abused on a few occasions by a close family friend. Our families spent a great deal of time together, and this man never gave my parents a reason to feel as thought they could not trust me with him. While the abuse was occurring I really had no idea exactly what was happening. The attempts started out as subtle and just continued to get more aggressive. When I finally realized what was happening, I was able to take a stand for myself and the abuse stopped. A few years later, I came forward about what had happened, and with the help of my abuser’s ex-wife and my mom, we moved forward in a legal process. After a lengthy trial, he went to prison. As I sat on the stand testifying against a man who tried to take away something so precious to me, it hit me. Prior to the abuse, this man and his family provided a sense of validation for me. A sense of belonging.

See, I grew up in a home with parents who fought. Money was usually tight, an older sibling was usually in trouble, and I was constantly trying to seek the approval of my father be it with sports or school. I never felt quite good enough. But when in the presence of my abuser, I felt like… enough. He used that to gain my trust. I had a nickname. He took me places. He bought me things. He complimented me and did not criticize me. His wife at the time treated me as her own. (She remains someone so very dear to my heart because of her absolute support. She is happily remarried to an amazing guy and she is an incredible mama to her girls.) Their house was an escape from the turbulent environment in which I was raised. And just as the enemy would have it, that need for validation would be used to try to take me out in the most intimate of ways.

I don’t speak of this part of my past for sympathy. The healing that has taken place is divine and is a topic for a whole separate blog. God has used that bad for SO MUCH good in my life, including my ability to be completely fulfilled by the validation I find in Christ.

To validate someone, is to establish their worthiness.

Validation is incomplete when it comes from man. It was never supposed to come from another person. It is not found in how many likes you have on your Instagram pictures. It will never satisfy if it is wrapped up in the number on the scale or the dollars in your bank account.

We are supposed to find all purpose, all comfort, all identity and hope within the arms of the One who made us.

My prayer is that insecurity can be released in Jesus’ name. That the need for acceptance from man can disappear in my personal life, and from the lives of those around me. I pray that the only validation we seek, will be the approval of the Father. Because through the cross, our hurts are covered, are mistakes are null and void. Through the cross we were made enough, we were made whole.