By Marcus Laster, Guest Blogger
“I’m going to escape.”
“I’m going to be somebody.”
I whispered these words as a boy while clutching my ears and squeezing my eyes shut in an attempt to drown out the noise and wish away the present. In the room next to me, I heard screaming, swearing, and sometimes my mother falling to the ground. The results were awful. Her nose would bleed or she had gashes on her head. My siblings and I would cry. If I was only bigger, I would do something, I thought. But I was helpless.
There were also periods of my childhood when I lived in poverty. Government cheese, food stamps and free school lunches provided sustenance. Our family went for periods without heat in the winter. Sometimes we did not have running water. And our clothes came from neighborhood church donation sites.
You may identify with the scenes I just described. The images, smells, feelings and tastes are burned into memory. Maybe that’s why you are visiting CDV.org right now. The adversities you experienced as a kid left a gap in your life that remains as an adult. It’s a deep, dark place of emptiness that you’ve tried to fill with things, activities, relationships, and other stuff. Yet the gap lingers. It festers. It’s still there.
“I’m going to escape.”
“I’m going to be somebody.”
Why did I say this as a kid? It’s because I felt helpless and above all, worthless. So as an adult I found myself on a journey to discover self-worth. I was trying to fill a void even though I didn’t realize it.
At first, I thought fame would fill the gap. So after college I ran after a career in broadcasting. I landed a job as a sports anchor/reporter and covered major events like the World Series, the Daytona 500 and the Masters. But it lost its luster, so I eventually quit. Later I took up modeling. I landed some pretty good gigs and traveled the US and Europe. However in the end, I was still empty. So I dropped modeling and sought fulfillment in corporate life instead. Because getting an MBA at a highly-esteemed business school, climbing the corporate ladder and making more money would make me feel like I’d made it. Right? Wrong. The gap was still there. So where did I find my self-worth? It was through faith.
Now, don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not trying to push my faith on you. But for me, believing in Jesus Christ and doing the things he taught gave me the purpose and self-worth I was looking for. I learned life-changing lessons and I actually created a blog and wrote a book about it.
What did I learn? I learned to forgive. And by forgiving my father, I became free. I let go of my anger and disappointment. I also learned to treat others as I wanted to be treated. So I vowed to never lay my hands on my wife or children in anger. I also learned to be a servant, to love my neighbor as myself and put my words into action. So now I volunteer, serve at church and help others in need.
My life has purpose. I’m no longer searching for self-worth. I found it. My hope today is that you find it too.