:: searching for significance ::

The following is an article from relevant magazine. I've changed a few words and made it my own because it's as though I had written it myself.*

I have an insatiable need to feel extraordinary, to be a change-agent and leave a mark on the world. It's in my blood, and I'm desperate for significance.

I believe my God-given destiny is where my greatest happiness lies. I don't think twice about it. It's what propels me forward, making me breathless for influence and to have my voice heard. The influence of my life is more expansive than I can imagine and I'm going to do something really big with my life.

I really put my heart into everything I do. I enjoy what I do and it gives me the impetus to keep right on going. But sometimes the hunger for significance still lingers, and the high doesn't last very long. In a matter of moments I felt empty again, needing some new quest to make me feel alive and worthwhile once more.

It's kind of brutal to find out that my insatiable appetite for significance is also deeply rooted in a desperate need to feel valued as a young woman from a broken home. (I hate using that label but I'm slowly coming to accepting it.) My driven-ness is also an attempt to create an identity from scratch. My parents (mostly my dad) loved me but didn't take the time to speak into my heart, to tell me who I am, to give me a legacy. But I do find some level of comfort in knowing that the same desperation to feel validated and to know that my life counts is also rooted in a lot of other people my age.

And so comes the 'fun part'; admitting that my obession with success is a cry for attention and security, and ultimately the need for spiritual healing. I need my heavenly Father to show me that I matter to Him. The broken parts of me or the missing parts that still need to be filled in long for affirmation and to know that I am loved. Because my parents didn't tell me this, I look for other relationships and experiences to speak to my aching heart. The significance-shaped vacuum cries out and seeks the comforts of the world's applause.

God hears my cry for significance and whispers, "I put that longing in your heart because I have plans for you. I gave you that voracious hunger for greatness and beauty and purpose because I'm calling you to serve Me and reveal My marvelous purpose." He is a generous and willing Father who tells His children, "Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession" (Psalm 2:8, TNIV). Today I'm learning that as I step out in faith and take hold of the opportunities He gives me, I can trust He will enable me to leave my mark on this world.