I know you sometimes feel ordinary but you’re not.
You are one of a kind ~ a unique and beautiful blend of all God wants you to be.
You may feel invisible … like you’re just one of millions of others.
But there’s no comparison. God sees you friend.
And when God sees you, He sees someone He loves.
Listen as He whispers…”You are precious and honored in my sight …. and I love you.” Is 43:4
He also sees someone He knows.
“You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.” Ps 139:1
Since God knows you, has a purpose for you and loves the way He made you, I’m confident He wants you to feel the same way. Watch, listen and let Him sing these truths over your heart today. {And if you’re reading this in email, click here to watch it online.}
You really are…
Beautiful
Loved
Cherished
Chosen
Treasured
Sacred
You are His!
May God’s sweet affirmations replace all those comparisons. As you identify, understand and embrace who HE created you to be, I’m praying that like the psalmist, you can learn to say with confidence, “Lord, You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb, I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Ps. 139:13-14)
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Want to find out more about who God created you to be?
Here’s a link to a FREE Spiritual Gifts Assessment to see what your gifts are!
It’s FREE for everyone!
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Today’s GiveAway: I’m giving away 5 copies of the personality assessment that I talk about in my book A Confident Heart, In chapter 8, I share an in-depth section about personalities and how our unique traits play a key role in our God-given purpose. Today’s giveaway is called Wired That Way Personality Profile and includes a time-tested profile with definitions, instructions to eliminate confusion, a detailed explanation of your scores, and a handy team-building chart that shows how the different Personalities interact.
Enter to win: Share a little bit about what God is speaking to your heart or showing you today through my P31 devotion, this blog post and/or music video. Can’t want to hear from your heart. Simply click “share your thoughts” below. {And if you’re reading this in email, click here.}
Read my Encouragement for Today devotion The Comparison Trap.
Discover more from Renee Swope
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I love the picture in the email you sent. In the last 5 months, I’ve lost my mom to leukemia, my step mom to a heart attack and my dad to melanoma (that was sunday). I really needed to feel loved. Now I do. This book is doing so much for me, teaching me how to be more confident in God and teaching me more about God’s Word. I am growing closer to God each day.
I have been searching for me. I married @ age 17, quit school, got mt GED, had my 1st child before turning 18. By age 24 I had 4 kids. I have been married for 17 yrs. I love my kids & have always been a stay at home mom. I was ok with it. But, now that my kids are getting older, I feel I’m having an identity crisis. I’m almost 35, next week, and I have NO idea who I am. This chapter is very helpful. I just pray God will reveal my identity as I feel empty. I never had a chance to ‘find myself’ at an age most girls do. I feel to old now…but I know God made me for a reason. I just need to figure out what it is. 🙂
I almost forgot! That song so spoke to my heart! I felt like dancing around my room! My daughter woke up this morning and said good morning beautiful! I said good morning pretty! I thought that is new why did she say that. I really like that! I opened my email tonight and there is this wonderful song. I had my daughter come listen we both are putting that on our ipods right now! I AM BEAUTIFUL! I am just so thankful for the nuggets of God that you share Renee. You are awesome in Christ and I am seeing that I am too through His eyes!
I really enjoyed Chapter 8. I thought back to how God led me to find my gifts years ago and yet now I amint a new place in my life of finding where to use my gifts and this was perfect. I am feeling God doing a “new thing” in my life and through this study. Taking an assessment in the pastwas good for where I was then but you know what? That was the past and there are so many things God has for me that I am finally open to trying and doing. I am the kind of person that learns something and wants to stick to it instead of branching out. I can now see and feel myself when I am fighting change. I was reading some of the characteristics and I saw where it said you do things out of obligation or because you are supposed to. I looked long and hard at that and many times I do that! I am starting fresh and glad to be. This book has helped me tremendously and I cant thank Renee enough. I love new in Christ! He really does make everything new in its time! August Rose
I must first thank you so much for your blogs and emails. I received the email for this blog at a time today that I was literally about to walk out of my job. I happened to check my email and this was in my inbox. It had the desired effect of calming me down. I have been really struggling at work lately with a lot of negativity and extra work loads. I am usually easy going and I can multitask like no one’s business, and that has helped me in so many areas of my life. I feel God calling me to do something different but I can’t figure out what it is. I have so much going on that I am praying for peace and stillness for Him to guide me to what He wants me to do. I have found that during these trouble times that I am having that reading your blog, P31, and/or Lysa’s blog I feel calmer. I always stand amazed at how God works and how he puts just the right thing in my inbox or since I subscribe to your updates via text, I receive an encouraging text just when I need it and pertaining to something that is happening in my life. Thank YOU for using your God given talents and helping us out!
Thank you for your ministry to women. I have failed to follow God ‘s leading in so many phases of my life. I see other women who seem so confident and positive in their lives and just want to be so much like them I often seek music as a calming, consoling escape and I am thankful for the song you posted . I am made for so much more. Thankful that God has not given up on me.
I absolutely LOVE that song. God often uses music to reach deep into my heart, and this song is a grab-it-and-don’t-let-go example. The greatest thing is that I’ve heard this song many times, but today was the day God chose to reveal Himself to me through it. He really is in control, and knows what we need and when to send it to us. Thanks soooo much for sharing it.
So glad it spoke to your heart like it did mine!
I had a bad day today. Spent much time looking for financial papers that I needed. Went to my mother’s condo (she recently passed away) and found many crickets in her storage closet. Argued with a sibling. And worst of all, I received a rejection on an article that I had written on speculation for a magazine. That last item made me question, “Why do I think I’m called to be a writer?” Then I read the “You’re One of A Kind” post and my day got a whole lot better. I look forward to finding out my spiritual gifts. Thank you.
Sooo sorry about your really hard day, Praying for you Sue!!!
I’m 43 and burned out leading a children’s ministry, even though I thought organization was “my thing”. I long to be all I can as a wife and mother. I haven’t read the entire Chap 8 yet, but was just wondering this morning about asking what books and assessments Renee was talking about. Thank you for the opportunity to win one. But most of all, thank you for your wonderful ministry and book. I know it’s blessing me, as well as the ladies in my Sunday Bible study, as I share some of your encouraging insights.
I took the spiritual gift assessment. The first time I took one was over twenty years ago. I’ve taken one other before now. No matter how much I experience life, and grow, and change, my spiritual gifts remain constant! Same gifts, different applications. Made me smile and think, the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
I encourage everyone to take the assessment. Rejoice in the gifts you’ve been given, and don’t sweat the low scores! God’s got someone else covering those areas. 🙂
I agree, LeAnne! Everyone should take the assessment! I’ve taken a personality assessment in a psychology class, but never a spiritual gift assessment such as this – I was pleasantly surprised! 🙂
Loved the music video….really reminded me “how much more” we really are…..than we think ourselves to be. Powerful words describe us: treasured, chosen, loved, sacred, His!!!! We need to remember that next time we find ourselves comparing, or feeling unloved. Thanks as always for the encouragement Renee!
I have been on a journey for the past 2 years of healing. I still struggle with feeling like what I have to offer is not valuable or important. I would love to discover who god meant me to be and where I am supposed to fit and serve the body.
Thank you Renee! I also compare myself to others. It’s so amazing to think I am constantly a work in progress to be more like Him every day. It humbles me to think that He looks at me and sees true beauty, I’m exactly where He wants me to be and my worth is more than rubies! I am unique and that’s the way He wants it!
How great is our God!
I confess I always thought that when those at church spoke of spiritual gifts, it was just a way to get volunteers. I feel bad about that now. I see that being created in Christs image means so much more than my human form, it means giving of myself, as Christ gave of himself, as his disciples gave of themselves. And when I was born again, as Renee says in her book, Christ gave me the gift he had been waiting so long to give me, my spiritual talent. It seems a hard gift to unwrap however, and I have been saved for years, although if I am to be honest I just went along doing my “Christian duty”, and never really letting it all sink into my heart. I wanted it to, but I didn’t know how. I see now that I wasn’t going to be struck by a lightning bolt, and it wasn’t going to just going to spontaneously happen without me doing my part. I had to make God’s word something that I took to heart, believe His promises. I had to talk to Him in a whole different way, a way I never had before, not as a divinity that I couldn’t really get close to, or wasn’t worthy of being close to, but as a Father who truely loves me! Having had problems with my earthly Father it was hard to do that, but I have finally forgiven those in my past, and forgiven myself for my part. Once I had asked for forgiveness for myself and from those I could, and telling God I forgave those that had passed on, it all changed. I felt a weight lifted off of me, so much hurt and anger taken away, I also felt at peace with my own father who had passed on, and able to fully love my heavenly Father. I am ready now to unwrap more of my spiritual gift to see what God wants me to do as a part of the body. I also feel worthy, loved, and ready to allow myself to let God love me fully, to talk to my Father like a daughter should, and to do my best to make my Daddy proud! Thank you for the beautiful video today Renee, it really helped drive home how much my Daddy does love me! I am still unsure of how to find my spiritual gift, and could use some help in unwraping it, so if I am blessed with the book, I would be delighted! If not, I will not stop searching though. I am inspired more than ever before to find my gift now! 🙂
Esther- good to see you on here again. I’ve been thinking alot about this chapter like we all have. I know I have the gift of enouragement. God impressed me with this thought that we are all very loved and precious ‘daddy’s girls” because we are HIS girls. Hope this encourages you and the rest of the ACH sisters like it does me!
Hi Dallena! Good to see you here again too! 🙂 I took the test Renee had, and I got Administration, and then by one point less, and all tied, Exhortation (“This is the spiritual gift where the Spirit enables certain Christians to deliver challenging and encouraging words.”), Faith (“This is the spiritual gift where the Spirit provides Christians with great confidence to believe and expect great things from God”.), and Wisdom (This is the spiritual gift where the Spirit empowers particular Christians with a supernatural understanding of God’s Word and the will to apply it to life situations.”). I don’t know how I got any of these really other than Administration, which is what I did as a career for years. I don’t quite know what to do with all of this. I need to pray on it, and think of what God wants me to do with the information, and if I do have those gifts, what I can do with each of them to bless others, and please God as a part of the church body. I really have to wonder about wisdom as one of my gifts, as I have never felt I had a “supernatural” understanding of God’s Word. I have even doubted at times if I was doing Bible studies I was in the right way! It was a good test though, and I tried to be very honest in my answers.
Thanks for the encouragement Dallena (I think you are right about your gift :)! Hope you have a blessed week! 🙂
I have never thought about it in that way of comparing myself to someone else until I read the devotional today. I think a lightbulb went off. My head knows all of the things that God says about me, but my heart doesn’t always allow me to believe it. I’m looking foward to the online study and I’m anticipating more ways that my heart will accept the truth. Thank you so much for today’s word from God
It is so true that the most important thing I need to remember is that God cares about me. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of me or says about me ~ His love is all I need! Thank you so much for your inspiring posts and sharing your heart with us through this study.
I need to remember that God DOES care about me. Even though I’m not starving, have a roof over my head, a loving family, wonderful friends…all the blessings of life, He STILL cares about what’s on my heart. Now I just need to figure out how to listen for His voice in the midst of all the other “stuff” in my head and heart…
I lose every time I compare my inside and outside with another’s outside. I’m 54 and still struggle with comparisons. I am slow but sure learning to see myself as God sees me.
My, my, my! I watch this video and I see my face in every face that appears there. Every emotion that they portray I have felt this week and am feeling again right now with tears streaming down my face. I have written before about the 22 year marriage I threw away because of a decision based on “feelings” and the 3 year relationship that I’m in now where a marriage commitment seems to be nowhere in sight. This past Sunday my boyfriend and I were with is family celebrating a special birthday. Family everywhere; most of which I know and they know me. Many expect me to be present during these family functions as does he. He and I were talking and somehow we got on the subject of a female he started to hook up with before me. He said she had told him she wanted a HUSBAND and his reply was well she’d picked the wrong man cause he was hardly trying to get married. When the words came out of his mouth I could have sunk through the sofa I was sitting on. Three years of my life I have dedicated to this man. And marriage is not even a consideration??? At that moment I felt like I had no strength; right then I felt like I was not worth anything. I wanted to get up and walk out but of course we’d come together and he’d drove and home was quite a distance away but the rest of the entire evening was just a blur to me. I tried to mask my feelings but several people asked what’s wrong?? Is everything all right with you? I was heart broken; I’m still heart broken and I’m at the point now where I’m asking God should I just end it now before I waste more of my time. But I love him, I love his family and I don’t want to give any of it up. I don’t want to have to start all over again building a new relationship and learning someone new. The sad thing about all of this is that I know he loves me but he is still wounded from his first failed marriage. He too needs to have a confident heart. I want to keep this video and play it over and over and over again until I can stop the pain, I am made for so much more than all of this
The Comparison Trap devotional really spoke to me today. It is funny how much more I identified with it when I you mentioned what you looked like – fair skin and freckles, I identified with this message even more as during the middle school years I was teased for those things as well. Sometimes it is things we find in others that are similar are what draws us towards them or their point of view. I suppose this is a form of comparing also.
But I love the message that your friend shared with you about how we compare our insides with the other persons outsides! This is so true and sounds silly when you think about it this way.
This was a great message!