Breaking Up With Worth
Breakups, the good the bad the ugly- the heartbreaking. Breakups are annoying, hurtful, gut wrenching, maybe joyful, and filled with lots of ice cream. We all have our own description of what a breakup feels like, but I am willing to say that many breakups will lead us to question who we are as a person when it is all over. I know I did.
Six years ago I was faced with this question of self-doubt when I was broken up with. The breakup was straight out of left field and literally left me on my friend’s dorm room floor crying my eyes out. In the days that followed, I found myself continually asking questions like, what did I do wrong? What could have I done better? Do I have any worth left? Who am I now? Ever since high school and into my sophomore year of college I was with this person and now I was supposed to navigate life outside of high school in the college world all by myself? You see, unfortunately, I had put my whole identity into this relationship and this person. I let myself be defined by our relationship, and I measured my worth by our relationship status. Once it was pulled out from under me, I really didn’t know who I was anymore.
Six years later and the one piece of advice I would give my younger broken self would be never to put your identity into a relationship and definitely not into another person. First and foremost your identity lies in being a son or daughter of God. Second, your identity comes from you, and all that encompasses you as a person. Your likes, dislikes, character traits, appearance, and the inherent worth that you have from the mere fact that you are a human person. When we date another person, we can tend to start to mold our likes, dislikes, character traits, appearance, and even the worth we feel like that person gives us into similar of that other person. Doing so is not upholding our own dignity and therefore can make the breakup ten times more difficult. This took some time for me to learn, understand, and then put into practice. But I know the next time I begin a relationship I will be respecting my dignity and his dignity by not finding my worth in him or our relationship.
We as a culture need to do a better job at upholding our own individual dignity and not cheapen it by measuring our worth in someone or something else. We are better than that. You are better than that, and I am better than that. I have learned that no matter what kind of break up a person goes through it will never take away your worth as a human person. That person nor that relationship gave you your worth. You have incredible value by way of where your first identity lies. God gave that to you, not that person who left you on the floor crying.
