Hi Ladies,

 

My name is Sahfiya Richardson, I'm 26, married to an amazing man and I'm a mother to be. Sounds amazing right? Well this happened after discovering my worth. Let me explain. Welcome to my PAST:

I was born and raised in California, just a scrawny, tall, and ashy black girl who never felt beautiful. Yea my parents told me everyday, but there suppose to tell us right? I felt ugly from the inside out, i felt I was never worth anything. I hated my hair, my skin color, my height, my body, the list can go on with the lack of love for my self appearance. I searched for friends that i felt looked prettier, to try and highlight what i felt was missing from me. The lack of attention i received in my youth and headed to my teenage years led to a huge plummet of giving myself to men who even more so destroyed the little worth I felt I had left.

I lost my virginity at age 14, and the wave of acceptance through sex and men skyrocketed from there. Guys were telling me I was beautiful for the first time. These men seemed interested in my mind but seemed to only be lusting for my body and I fell for every line in the book thinking this void was finally being filled with the words from each man that lured me by his lips. Through out high school, I choose to grow up behind closed doors I continued to give myself away to every man that told me i was beautiful. Still in a blind search for my worth. Searching for love and thinking I would find it beneath the sheets. After every guy, I was just left for dead mentally, and I would just simply wake up, clean myself up and head towards the next one.

High school got worse and worse for me, lets not even mention college. I slept with so many guys to this day its still disgusting for me to count. Every man stripped away something from me, everyone gave me a false promise. I expected to find some type of self worth every time I laid down and gave myself away. Every morning I laid in a bed alone, feeling naked and less than the night before. You would think that feeling would make me stop, but it only ignited me. My thirst grew richer for more, I even began to experiment with drugs and an uncountable amount of alcohol. Searching for more ways to bring self worth, luring attention towards myself. I thought being the life of the party would bring what I was searching for but it just left me with an STD and a random guy in my bed the next morning, or throw up mixed with blood and a high that left me for dead.

The void remained needless to say. There is no fairy tale ending, but there is a God who began to intervene, he had always been there, but day in and out I shut him out. "God cant fill this void, he cant make me feel beautiful or loved, He probably doesn't even exist!" I fought these thoughts daily, growing up in a Christian church I heard about him and this Jesus guy, but he got in the way of how i wanted to live, and the things I wanted to do with my life, frankly he just didn't work for me. It was at this point that I met my future husband, he didn't come gift wrapped or on a cloud by any means. To me he was just another guy that I planned on giving my body to in search of filling this longing void. He taught me different, over time he began to strip me of my insecurities, but still the void was there, he searched for other things within me aside from my body, but still that's all I felt i could give him. Because I didn't know my worth nor his, I continued to give my body as the only offering I thought i had, these choices left me sitting in a clinic in the midst of my own blood after aborting my first child. I was completely lost and defeated, in a state of selfishness I did what I knew best, I choose ME over everything else.

At the time neither of us knew Christ, we definitely didn't have marriage in mind, but we both knew we had found something in the other person that we've both never experienced so we gave it a try. We opted for commitment. It was the first time I had only been with one guy for a longer course of time. Yet I still wasn't content, something was still missing.

In Dec 2010, after continuously fighting off these weird spiritual feelings I finally decided to give my life to Christ, and that was truly the best decision I ever made. I didn't immediately feel complete by any means, it was definitely still a process, but i finally found my self worth. I found a man that literally was beaten to pieces and hung on a cross for ME! I knew I had to be worth something, the first paragraph of this blog deserved death, I didn't deserve anything this man named Jesus had done for me. Yet he gave EVERYTHING to fill up everywhere I lacked, to fill the void I had been longing for. I finally felt loved. He accepted me for who i was and who i am, this process began to change me and conform me.

I had been living with my future husband, which was my boyfriend at the time, and we mad the decision to move out, we recognized the life we were living wasn't right, the sex had to stop, I made a conscious effort to fully give my life to Jesus, with or without my boyfriend. But Christ began to transform his as well, and that next July we were engaged to be married. Me, engaged, after all my dirt, my disgusting past. Who would want to marry me? but he did!

After about 6 months of engagement we got married on Jan 3rd, 2012. March 23rd we will be having our first child. This man didn't help me find my self worth, Christ did! This man, John Richardson was simply the icing on top, he was simply the messenger God sent me to show me my worth, to show me that I can feel beautiful with out laying on my back night after night, without having to be drunk and high out of this world to feel complete. God sent him as he did his son, so show me I was worth more than I could even comprehend!

Ladies you are worth LOVE! You are worth more than what that voice tells you each night as you lay alone in the bed or with a guy who could care less about your dreams.  Believe me! Your worth more!

Love ,

Sahfiya Richardson

(Just a broken girl, depending on Christ to mend the pieces)