Not Worth So Little

To be "normal" is the goal of the world. We must meet all these criteria in order to fit in---and if we do not meet all of them, we had better be on the road to doing so! College, work, home life, entertainment--all of these must be met, and hopefully exceed expectations. 
Being limited  in health makes all these wordly expectations sting. Worse, they sting because I have a remembrance of  actually doing many things that fit into the "normal" mold, something I had rarely succeeded in doing in my life. Lost, all of it lost. What I taste now and then is the new "normal" for me, it is hauntingly wonderful, and hauntingly terrible because of the memories of "living" I had but two years ago.
So, throughout life here on earth, as long as we are trapped into meeting this norm, we are never ever satisfied. Our job is never good enough, our college not perfect, our lives in some manner....wrong. This creates in us more and more agitation as we try and force ourselves into the mold "someone" said we needed to fit.
I will likely never have my "old" life back, with as much freedom and control as I once had. However, I can be free in another way. Looking back over what I have written is a life filled with stress and unhappiness. A large hole is always in our lives, and no matter what we toss into the hole, the hole stays the same size--or perhaps even getting larger and deeper every day.
We are meant to be in union with God. The world tells us all these things that we are coming up short in: we do not have enough money, friends, clothes, etc. The world hammers on these things as might a drug separate us from reality. We are not short on those things most likely. What we really are short on is God, God and His overwhelming love. 
The world yells at my front door, pounding, pounding, pounding with fists and screaming that I am useless, worthless, pointless. Shame should drip down the very walls of my house for how useless I am.
It is easy to be trapped into thinking that, regardless of the difficulty we are found in, but we are not useless. We are each here at a specific time and place for a specific reason: to know God. As we know Him more and more, the more we see that the world is simply trying to drown out the call of God. He stands with open arms for the prodigal to return, or for the newly adopted to rush into. We are not useless as the world chants at us all every day, we are worth much. God wished to be near us so much that He died a horrific death, a death for those who may at one point in their lives hated Him.
I am often very sick, and in much pain. I feel there is often little I can contribute to the world, especially on days when the world shouts at me the loudest for doing so "little". Yet, as in the story of Mary and Martha...waiting and listening at the feet of God is a very important thing indeed. If our hearts are broken and weeping with the day, with the hurt of the world's shouts, the hurt of illness, the hurt of anxiety or depression...reach out to the greatest of Fathers, cry in His arms, read His love letter to you. For none of us are worth so little as the world would have us believe.