“You Matter” were the two words that resonated from the mouth of Iyanla Vanzant on her spotlight moment on Oprah’s SuperSoul.TV show. Her message at times was silently told through the painful childhood scars that were left on her that now are boldly declared that were never hers but her grandmothers. Her first message told was defined by lines that were drawn on a farmland that her grandmother was never supposed to cross.
Unfortunately, at nine, her grandmother crossed them and was raped by the sharecropper’s son. Her father then beat her and was more worried about him losing his job than her rape. What was the message that was communicated to her grandmother that day that was passed down to her?
It was that she didn’t matter.
My message is the same as Iyanla’s, “you matter,” Don’t take on other people’s scars and wounds. I too, had to learn this lesson. I had to face the same questions; I’m asking you. What were the lines that were drawn in the sands for you from your generations? What were you raped of and what has life beaten you for that you have carried and passed down to your generations?
“You Matter” is what you need to remember. For you to heal, you must be able to identify the source of those pains so that they can be dealt with so healing can come. My mother had four children and by the time I was nine years old, I believed that my mother didn’t love me because she never wanted four children. I was that fourth child. But that wound was even deeper because I began to believe that if my mother that had four children couldn’t love me, how could God because He had so many children in the world. This was the question of my heart as a child.
I didn’t feel like I mattered to my mother and that was the root of rejection that would define the lines in the sand of my life. The enemy never thought I would get pass those lines. Make up in your mind that you will allow God to help you cross those lines in the sands of life and help someone else over to the other side by reminding them they matter, “you matter.”