Ever Feel Like Someone's Trash?

“Six dollars??” My eyebrows shot up and I turned to my daughter, who was rifling through the dresses in the rack next to me. Home from college on fall break, she asked to go thrifting to find “teacher clothes” for her upcoming clinical placements. Naturally, momma said let’s go! because, who says no to thrifting. And with my favorite shopping buddy nonetheless.

“This sweater is gorgeous,” I gushed, giddy over my find. “And look—the tags are still on! Oh my word, it’s Banana Republic. What?? Who would give this to the thrift shop?”

Ironically, just the day before, I had cleaned out my own closet, stuffing several perfectly good tops into a trash bag to take to the charity bin. And a few of them, I might be ashamed to say, still had the tags intact.

What’s the saying? One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Do you ever feel that way in life?

Like somebody’s castoff?

There are big triggers, like divorce or betrayal that leaves a woman feeling unwanted, replaceable—like she wasn’t worth keeping. (Which is a lie, by the way.) Or getting passed up for a promotion you deserved, watching someone less qualified get the nod while you’re left wondering what’s wrong with you that made them overlook your value.

In my world, getting cast aside looks like rejection from a publisher because your Instagram following is too small, or your last book didn’t sell enough copies. And when you realize all your hard work and desire to make a difference is diminished to a pile of refuse in the industry’s eyes, it cuts deep to the heart.

For many of us, it’s simply the quiet ache of empty nesting, when the role that defined us for two decades suddenly feels obsolete. Like we’ve been lovingly folded up and placed on a shelf now that the “real work” of motherhood is done. 

Or maybe it’s watching friendships fade when you’re no longer useful in a particular season—when the carpools end, when you move away, when life circumstances shift and suddenly you’re old news.

And for all of us, that discarded feeling creeps in whenever a careless, hurtful word from a spouse or a child leaves us feeling wounded, unseen, less-than. This world is full of treasure mistaken for trash.

But God sees us differently.

There’s a moment in Luke’s gospel that wrecks me every time I read it. Jesus is at Simon the Pharisee’s house for dinner when a woman with a notorious reputation crashes the party. She'’s the kind of woman respectable people cross the street to avoid—the kind the religious elite had written off as worthless, unsalvageable.

She brings an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, and then she does something shocking. She weeps at Jesus’s feet, wetting them with her tears, wiping them with her hair, kissing them, and pouring out that precious perfume.

Simon is horrified. If Jesus were really a prophet, he thinks, He’d know what kind of woman this is and send her away.

But Jesus sees something completely different.

“Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.’ Then Jesus said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven... Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’” (Luke 7:44-50)

Everyone else saw trash. Jesus saw treasure.

The woman everyone had discarded? Jesus welcomed her, honored her extravagant love, and sent her away with peace and dignity restored.

This is how God sees you and me, too. Not through the lens of the publisher who rejected us, the spouse who wounded us, the friend who ghosted us, or the empty calendar that whispers we’re no longer needed. He sees you and me the way I saw that Banana Republic sweater—as something valuable that someone else failed to recognize.

Actually, no. He sees us as infinitely more precious than that.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

Chosen. Royal. Holy. Special possession.

Those aren’t words we use for trash. They’re words reserved for treasure.

The world might misread your value. People might overlook your worth. Circumstances might make you feel discarded or obsolete. But God? He never makes that mistake. He knows exactly what He has in you—and He’s not about to toss you in the giveaway bin. You were bought at a remarkable price.

So the next time you're tempted to believe the lie that you’re disposable, remember that thrift store sweater. Remember that weeping woman at Jesus’s feet. And remember this truth: You are not someone’s castoff. You are God’s treasure, tags still on, worth the immeasurable cost of His son on the cross. 

And He’s never letting you go.