Finding Worth Beyond Achievements

The moment I climbed into the car I noticed that Miles was all off. His usual blush of freckles and inquisitive look had given way to that ghastly pallor, shadows under his eyes from secret tears of heat. Miles tightly gripped the backpack without saying a word as he strapped his seatbelt on.

I forced my way through the hushed car with the reassuring background of tyres and radio noise alone until I could no longer take it.

“You okay, buddy?”

Miles looked at the scenery outside the window and shrugged.

“Miles.”

His voice came out cracked. He did not manage to get into the robotics team. Everyone else did. Even Jason.”

Oh.

That was it.

His statement rendered the rest useless. Jason was his best friend. His partner in digital crime. The boy who had every programming language under his belt and was able to keep a Raspberry Pi stable on his handlebars, as bad luck would have it. When Jason got in, and Miles didn’t…

He grumbled something incomprehensible, almost inaudible, with the hum of the car. “I still don’t live up to them yet”. I don’t belong.”

Then, everything became clear.

My instincts roared at me to pull off to the side, hug him, and throw the entire school board out the window for causing him to feel like this. But I carried on, my eyes stinging because I had to resist crying.

It wasn’t just robotics. His past few years have been an endless fog to Miles – peer pressures and false steps alike have made him both more uncertain and more certain of his inadequacies and all but incapable of escaping the loneliness of his comparisons. I saw the slump of his shoulders, his perpetual cheek chewing during meals and his hesitant agreement to things he used to love.

It wasn’t about a team. It was about belonging. About worth.

“I’m not special,” he whispered. “I try so hard, Mom. But maybe I’m just average.”

I took a slow breath. The kind that can help you take a big deep breath and find your way to speak.

Miles, why do you think your position on the robotics team determines the value you possess?

It’s not only that, he murmured to himself. “It’s everything. Jason participates in the team, has more friends and always obtains better grades. I’m just... left behind. I try. I try so hard. But I don’t get anywhere.”

We were in a quiet part of the drive. The trees rustling outside our window were bathed in golden amber light, merging into motion from miles away. Time then stretched out between us, giving me time to think.

This gave me an opportunity to remember those times.

I remembered that once I’d felt like a Miles, too.

The image of a middle school dance returned to me – every girl coupled with a date for Boys II Men’s slow dance, me excluded alone on the bleachers. I remembered standing alone on the bleachers, wearing a cheap taffeta dress, my smile as forced as the one I was giving all evening.

I always used to disappear into the background in elementary school.

Not pretty enough. Not talented enough. Not enough, period.

It took me a long time- almost a lifetime, if you will, for me to realize I wasn’t valuable enough to sustain my self-esteem if I was not recognized or validated by someone.

I idled the car in the driveway, turned it off and squared my shoulders to look him in the eye.

“Share a careful listening, Miles,” I pressured him since I missed hearing this at the most critical time. Could you listen to it now?

He blinked, but he was still waiting for the disappointment. Or perhaps he knew that it wouldn’t change his mind, first-hand experience with similar advice.

Your robotics application cannot define you. Your measure of value is not given by test scores, by your rank or the number of birthday invitations you get. You don’t push numbers on somebody’s chart.

His face betrayed confusion even as he did not interrupt me.

What you are is precisely what God wanted. With your wiring. Your spark. And your value?” I touched his chest on the gearshift and placed my hands on it. “It doesn’t live out there. It lives here. And up here—in your head, so you are created with meaning. With love. With purpose.”

His bottom lip quivered. What if the feeling is missing inside of me?

“Oh baby. Feelings lie. Feelings twist things up. But God doesn’t. And He doesn’t make mistakes.”

Miles sat with that for a little while. Just as I thought that was the end, he addressed me in whispers, “Do you believe that, too?” Why He chose me for a reason?

I smiled. “Absolutely. It was always destined for you to take over this place. No one in the world can replace you.

He nodded slightly, still holding the straps of his bag.

Although this wasn’t a chapter easy to turn, I sensed that it could lead to a lighter vision for him.

While Miles was in the kitchen, on that table, drawing a comic that night, I went out for a run, badly needed.

In the last couple of years my running had become a type of spiritual practice for me. It was a method of meditation with the Lord as my body rolled over the pavement, but my mind craved more than just the endless loop of my issues.

When I was halfway through my run, I turned my playlist on, and it dropped a track that I didn’t even think of weeks ago.

I was jolted by the music “Whom You Say Ind me” by Hillsong.

The lyrics struck me like thunder.

I am chosen, not forsaken. It is where You have set me that I belong.

I was walking slower, not tired from the distance but feeling stirring emotions.

Because there it was. The idea that I wanted Miles to believe in. In truth, I was only starting to buy into and feel it myself.

Not what the world says.

Not what the school says.

Not even what our emotions reveal to us.

But what God says.

Loved. Chosen. Worthy. Enough.

In the eyes of God, ranking is halted at the finish line. There is no ladder. No scoreboard. No pecking order.

Only grace.

The next day, I found a note in front of my coffee mug.

It was a sketch. Miles drew himself wearing a superhero outfit while holding a robotic arm and the words “Made With Purpose” flying over his head.

Underneath, in careful block letters:

What Whom You say I am. Thanks, Mom.”

I laughed. I cried. I took a picture of the note, and posted it on the fridge.

He was still growing. Still learning.

But so was I.

We all are.

If you’re reading these words and you feel like Miles, if you’re staring at your list of failures and are asking yourself: “Am I worth anything?” listen to me;

Stop.

Just stop.

That is what really matters if not.

Kindness. Courage. Creativity. Compassion. Perseverance. Faith.

They don’t fit on resumes. They don’t win trophies. But these are precisely the sort of things that make our world need the brightness it so badly needs. That’s what He observes when He looks at you.

You are not forgotten. You are not a mistake. You are loved beyond reason.

You are chosen. Not forsaken.

He knows what you are worth, and you are more than just what you’re not.

And that?

That’s more than enough.