Uselessly Worthy

Since becoming legally blind, there are few places in the world where I feel more useless than in an unfamiliar grocery store. I stand next to rows and rows of condiments and cutlery, unsure of what anything around me is, unable to use my sense of smell or sound to identify the similarly packaged objects. I helplessly poke and prod items, trying to guess what they might be and finding that 90% of the time, I’m in the way of a very efficient shopper who is on a mission to get in and out of the grocery store in under 2 minutes. Lies about my worth come creeping out of the ceiling tiles and across the slippery floors, piercing me to the heart. Who knew looking for macaroni and cheese could send one into an existential crisis?    

It was after one of these recent bouts of coming face to face with my limitation that I read a story that Henri Nouwen tells: 

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest when they came across a tall, huge, narrow, old, beautiful tree. The carpenter asked his apprentice, “Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so narrow, so old and beautiful?” The apprentice looked at his master and said, “No, why?” “Well,” the carpenter said, “Because it is useless. If it had been useful, it would have been cut down long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless, it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax.”  

This story reminds me how flawed assessments of our own or others “usefulness” can be. It reminds me that God considers me to have worth not based on my ability to whiz through a grocery store list or differentiate between zucchinis and cucumbers by touch; God deems me worthy simply because I am his creation – His child.  Our disabilities or abilities have no bearing on God’s assessment of our worth; even when I feel useless, God sees me as worthy.  

As true as these words are, when I’m standing in the produce section, they often feel trite and empty. Yet, as much as I struggle to believe it, I think there is reason to give thanks – to consider it blessing not to be tempted to confuse my usefulness with my worth – to thank God that I am allowed to grow into a majestic tree feeding on the truth of God’s pleasure in me for who I am not for what I can do – to be joyful that I can evade the world’s reduction of humans to productivity machines.  My disability is teaching me, one grocery store at a time, how deeply true it is that the world’s assessment of our usefulness is not the same as our worth. Wherever you are today, whether you are feeling the weight of living with chronic pain, caring for a loved one, or living with limitations, may the next giant, majestic tree you encounter quiet the world’s hasty and myopic judgements about your usefulness and amplify the voice of God calling you worthy. 

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-31 

By: Amberle Brown, Co-Founder of The Banquet Network