What are YOU worth?

Ever been to an auction? ...

Imagine you have a friend who loves paintings. Imagine you accompany this friend, to an auction of one of Pablo Picasso’s original paintings. In the auction hall, the painting is beautifully displayed on a pedestal, front and centre. It looks pretty ordinary to you, just a nice landscape. So you say nothing and just observe. Then the auctioneer announces that the bidding will begin at $500,000. You think to yourself ‘Is this some kind of joke? Who would pay a cool half million for that?’ Much to your amazement, the members of the audience begin to indicate their interest. The price steadily rises until finally, the painting is sold for a whopping $7 million. And the icing on the cake of your amazement? The buyer, your dear friend, can only be described with one word: ECSTATIC! Unbelievable. He just lost SEVEN MILLION dollars! 'Why?' You ask. Your friend says ‘Why not? I just gained a PICASSO, do you know what this means? I own a picture Pablo Picasso painted with his own hands - it’s mine.’ To your friend, that painting is worth $7million, maybe even more, it’s THAT valuable.

Think about the most expensive material thing you have EVER bought ...
A Beautiful house. A sports car. A diamond ring. A Luxury Cruise. A State-of-the-art Laptop. Concert Tickets to see your favourite artist LIVE. A wicked pair of designer shoes ...

Ok, let me guess, you probably had someone tell you that you paid too much for it, right? And you probably smiled to yourself, knowing they didn’t understand why and they never would. It was worth every penny you spent on it, the satisfaction of owning it, the pride of sporting it, the joy of knowing it now belonged to you. Why were you willing to pay THAT much for it? To you, it was worth THAT much. Simple.

The value of a thing is generally determined by how much money you’re willing to pay in exchange for it. The more you value it, the more money you are willing to part with to get it.

What are YOU worth?
Ever been asked that question before? ... if you have, you probably stated a monetary figure, that represented the sum total of all your assets. A reasonable answer, no doubt, but not quite the best one. Do you truly know what you are worth? When you look at yourself in the mirror, how valuable do you think what you see is?

How do you see yourself?

Maybe you see yourself as ‘out-of-place.’ You’ve always been different. You’ve been told you just don’t fit in. Your family sometimes teases that you must be adopted because you’re just not like everyone else. Like a misshapen penny in a roll of perfect pennies, it seems you’re never going to be any use to yourself or anyone. You’ve been told you’ll never amount to anything, you’re a good-for-nothing. You want to fit in, but try as you might, you stand out like a sore thumb and you wish you could just be like everyone else ...

Or perhaps you see yourself as ‘past-your-prime.’ You think your best days are behind you. Maybe you were once skilled, talented and celebrated, but can no longer work the skill or talent that caused people to celebrate you. Perhaps you’re a grandparent - You’ve worked your best years raising kids and grandkids who hardly even appreciate your sacrifice. You’ve been forgotten. Like an old wooden rocking-chair, left dust-covered and cobweb-ridden in the attic, replaced by a newer and modern recliner. You wonder if anyone would even notice if you suddenly were no more ...

The regular people taking a look at a misshapen penny or an old rocking-chair may with one glance classify it as ‘useless’ and dismiss it. Until the day an expert, a collector perhaps comes in, takes one look at the misshapen penny and says that’s a rare coin, one-of-a-kind from the treasury of King Henry VII. Or an antiques dealer takes one look at the old rocking-chair and says that chair was hand-carved by Abraham Lincoln in 1892, and he may even have sat in it as he thought up the Emancipation Proclamation. Suddenly, the true value of the ‘bad penny’ and the ‘old chair’ are revealed – they are each worth millions!

Like the so-called ‘bad penny’ or ‘old-chair’ perhaps you have been classified and dismissed by parents, peers, teachers, children, society, or worse, yourself. You may feel like life has dealt you TWO bad hands. Life hasn't just given you lemons, it's given you rotten ones! You’ve been stepped on, tossed aside, torn apart, until you can no longer see any good in yourself, if you saw any to begin with. When people say there is something great in everyone, you laugh to yourself because you know you’re the exception to that rule. Well, let me ask you this: if I take a $100 bill and I step on it, squeeze it, throw it in the trash, my dog chews it and spits it out, it gets covered in mud until it can no longer be recognized or recognize itself, yet it doesn’t completely fall apart, is it still worth $100? Say, I took that battered, tattered bill, cleaned it up, straightened it out and took it to the bank and I asked the teller to please give me a newer bill to replace it, would the teller say ‘oh my word, that bill is just so battered and tattered, umm, let’s see, I can give you a brand new $5 bill to replace it?’ No indeed, as long as the teller can still see the numbers on it, the teller would give me a $100 because that’s what its worth!

What are YOU worth?
I assure you, people are not qualified to determine what you’re worth because they cannot see it. Not your family, or the person who is closest to you, or the person who has known you all your life. Not even they can see what you’re worth – so never let anyone tell you what you are or are not worth. They are simply not qualified. But there is an expert, a collector, as-it-were, who knows your true value. And guess what? He took a look at you a loooooong time ago, and He valued you so much that when He thought of what He could exchange to get you this was His conclusion: All the gold in all of South Africa is not valuable enough; All the crude oil in Saudi Arabia is not enough; All the money in all the swiss banks is not enough; all of the stock in the New York Stock Exchange is not valuable enough. He looked at everything in the world, and it still wasn’t enough to exchange for you. So He decided that the only price he could pay that would be valuable enough to obtain a treasure of your caliber, was the very life on His ONLY son. And guess what? He gave up his son’s life without so much as a hesitation, just so he could have the joy of owning YOU! Just so he could proudly mention your name and say “I OWN ...”

Who is this 'collector,' this 'expert,' who alone is able, is qualified to determine your worth? He's the collector of broken men; the expert on rejected women; the God of Heaven and earth - the One who made you and knows you, inside and out, beginning to end.

What are YOU really worth? ... You are worth the life of the Son of the immortal, invincible, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God! ... Take a moment and wrap your mind around that, let it sink deep into your heart.

Maybe your parents told you that you were a mistake; maybe you were an abandoned child eventually adopted; maybe you’ve been rejected by peers, or even your own spouse who vowed to love you always, it doesn’t matter. Just like the battered and tattered $100 bill, your value has not been diminished and can NEVER be diminished by any person, circumstance, happening, or disability in your past or present or FUTURE. Whether you’ve done things that make a prisoner on death-row look like a saint, or you’ve out of no fault of yours been abused by people, by life itself, IT DOESN’T MATTER.
There are a few things money cannot buy – Newsflash: YOU are one of them! You are soooooo valuable that the only thing expensive enough to exchange for you was the very LIFE of the beloved and only Son of God, Jesus Christ. It was a divine exchange. It was a willing exchange. It was a loving exchange. But you're the only one who can make it a complete exchange.

When you buy something, it’s an exchange. You give money, you get the thing, and everybody’s happy, end-of-story right? ... Perhaps, not quite so in this case. Imagine selling all you have, then borrowing several thousands more to pay some kidnappers as ransom for the love of your life, only to have the freshly-emancipated love of your life, walk away without so much as a thank you or a backward glance ... How would you feel? No doubt, as though your heart had been ripped out and shredded to tiny pieces. You did ALL that, looking forward to spending all your days and moments with this person you love so, and now .... the person is gone forever. It’s almost unimaginable. If you can even imagine what that would feel like, multiply that by a BILLION and maybe that would be as a drop in the ocean compared to what your divine ‘collector’ feels, if after He’s paid THE ULTIMATE price, you still haven’t given Him the one thing He wants more than anything else: YOU!
It’s YOU God wants. You’re the only thing that makes a God who owns the whole earth and heavens, and lacks nothing sigh and say ‘I wish I had ...’ – YOU! Yes He wants your time, your service, your money, yes those show that you care, but more than that he wants your attention, your heart, in totality.

He wants to be your first thought when you awaken, and your last whisper as you fall asleep.

He wants to be the melody and lyrics to the song of your life.

The solution to the most complex equations of your existence.

The answer to your most difficult, secret questions.

The deepest longing, the utmost desire of your heart.

God wants You.

No, you can never truly understand why, it’s beyond comprehension. Because He’s immortal and you’re mortal. He’s all-powerful and you’re often powerless. He’s Perfect and you’re imperfect. He knows everything and you don't really know that much. He’s got the whole world, and what do you have? ... I mean, what could he possibly have seen in you to elicit this kind of love? No, you cannot fully grasp the manner, the depth, the span, the width, the breadth of His unchanging, undying, unlimited, unconditional LOVE for you.

You’ve got two options:
a. Disbelieve the story. Ignore the love. Reject the One who gave up everything for you
b. Believe the story. Accept the love. Love Him wholeheartedly, in return

So what’ll it be?

Bottomline my friend, if you asked Him why He loves you like that, all He’s going to say to you is simply is this: 'BECAUSE YOU’RE WORTH IT!!!'

_ _ _

You're a divinely-inspired, uniquely-crafted, undoubtedly-gifted, original masterpiece! Start acting like it.

- Lady InspiroLogos

Miss Inspiration Rebrands Herself!

I’ve changed my name.
William Shakespeare wrote the famous words “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” It’s true that changing your name doesn’t necessarily change who you are, but there is something in a name.

A name is a first-impression; an introduction to the world, so to speak. In the minds of all others, your name is a snapshot of your character, your personality, your looks, your voice, your speech, your deeds, and everything else that makes up you. Words are powerful, if you say something long enough and consistently enough, it’s likely to become a reality. I believe that over the course of time, we become our names. Your name is what everyone speaks every time you’re seen, or thought about, or mentioned – should it not then be something positive? (I’ve always wondered why any parent would give their child a name that means something negative. That child has to answer that name for at least the first 18 years of his/her life, and perhaps for the rest of his/her life. It behoves parents to do a thorough investigation to find good names for their children. Anyway, that’s a subject for another day.)

Why would anyone change names?
People change their names for various reasons: getting married or divorced; adopting a pet-name or alias to differentiate themselves from other people who share the same name; disassociating from a negative past; secrecy - going in witness-protection programs; and so forth. Finding out that one’s given name has a negative meaning is an uncommon but very good reason to change a name.
I believe each individual is unique – a divinely-inspired, uniquely-crafted, original masterpiece. It is the desire to stand out from the crowd that causes people to adopt aliases, unique names that are either self-given, or created by friends and/or family members. Used long enough, an alias can come to identify a person, more-so than his/her given name and eventually replace the given name. This happens often enough especially in the entertainment industry.

Why change my name?
Technically, I’m not changing the name on my birth certificate just yet. My given name, Ifueko, means a person who is gentle or meek or tolerant, it’s not defined exactly, but it’s a description of a desirable attribute. I like it, so it stays! My long-standing nick name, Fex, is derived from my given name - don’t ask how, just take my word for it – and it’s unique, so it stays too! Well then what name am I changing? That would be my most recently adopted name, my alias, or brand, so to speak: Miss Inspiration.

Miss Inspiration made the news recently. The headline read ‘Miss Inspiration Does Inspire!’(By the way if you haven’t read the beautifully-written, highly-inspirational article yet, you can do so via the following link: http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=144066#)
Why on earth would I want to stop being referred to as ‘Miss Inspiration’ then? Well, I have discovered that the names ‘Miss Inspiration’ and ‘Lady Inspiration’ and ‘Inspired Woman’ and so many other similar names are ALL already being used by other great women out there; other great women perhaps similar to me, but NOT me. Just like there’s only one you, there’s only one me: a divinely-inspired, uniquely-crafted, original masterpiece! Simple – I’m unique, and so should my name be.

What then will my name be?
What shall I call myself? I shall call myself who I am, naturally.
Well, who am I?
I am inspirational, yes.
My story is inspirational, definitely.
I am inspired, indubitably; better still, I am inspired by the very source of true inspiration, God. Besides that, I am female, a woman, yes, though the people close to me prefer to describe me as a ‘lady.’
So I’m inspired, and I inspire - and what is the primary method of my inspiration? Simple: WORDS.
Words in a poem, words in a song, words in a speech, words in a story;
Words written, words painted, words embroidered, words engraved;
Words in a card, words in a book, words in motion – a play, a movie;
Words amplified, words recorded, words spoken, words whispered;
Words, inspirational words, my words – inspired by God’s Word!

Some time ago, in trying to find a way to describe inspired words that also inspire, I came up with the word InspiroLogos, formed from a combination of two words: the English word inspire and the Greek word Logos. The word ‘inspire’ according to Webster’s dictionary means several things, including “to fill with creative power” and “to move by divine influence.” In Greek, logos means word or reason; but Logos in theology (uppercase L) means the word of God - which is my primary source of inspiration. InspiroLogos therefore means inspiring something or someone using words, especially the word of God. InspiroLogos is what I strive to do; so it has inevitably become my brand.

In conclusion:
What really is in a name? Some say nothing, I say potentially everything. My name is unchanged: Ifueko Fex Ogbomo. My motto still stands: I aspire to Inspire. But my short-lived, though beloved alias, ‘Miss Inspiration’ bows out gracefully to make way for the new brand.
Who am I? ...
I am creative, intelligent, insightful;
I am warm, nurturing, giving;
I am influential, positive, innovative;
I am soft, gentle, beautiful;
I am humble, gracious, virtuous;
I am the glory of man – a woman;
I am all I am because ‘I AM’ says I am.
I am Lady InspiroLogos – the inspired one who inspires.

Now it’s your turn – who are YOU?
Hint: To find yourself, discover your gift; To be yourself, manifest your discovery!
- Lady InspiroLogos