Book Review: Valuable by Liz Carter
By Jess Prins
Achieve, achieve, achieve… it’s the message that I feel surrounds me and my family. I sense the push and underlying message of needing to achieve greatness. Or maybe not necessarily greatness, but at least to achieve something! To get to the end of the day, week, month, or year and be able to pinpoint tangible achievements.
The term ‘small wins’ is so often bandied about in our home. Such as when our neurodiverse daughter finally manages to put something back where it belongs or asks us how we are going. We celebrate these small wins and they often bring tears to my eyes for so much work and therapy has gone into cultivating these habits. Rarely do they stick around for long! But the fact that we achieved them at least once is worth celebrating!
Along with that, with some forms of neurodiversity there is actually a realness to productivity and achievement. The combination of hyper focus and a brain that thinks about things in a different way, does often result in amazing things. We have a ‘gifted’ diagnosis in our family, and daily we are amazed at how her brain works and the things that it can do. Unfortunately, what my brain quickly jumps to is: imagine what she can achieve in life! If she harnesses that brain for good and works hard, she will be able to achieve so much in this world. She could win awards, be famous, earn the big money!
The Productivity Lie
So, when I read the book Valuable by Liz Carter I was deeply challenged. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with doing well and achieving things. I do actually think they are worthwhile and am so thankful for the therapy that my children receive to help them with the ‘small wins.’ But what this book does so well is speak into our culture’s narrative that so highly values usefulness and achievement.
Valuable: Why Your Worth is not Defined by How You Feel is a short, easy to read, biblical and thought-provoking book. Carter addresses the “productivity lie” that our culture has created and facilitates, namely that our value as a person comes from our usefulness. She states:
We so often tie our identity to our achievements, because that’s what the world shouts from every corner. Even in times of rest or exhaustion we hear that nagging voice whispering: You should be doing more. You should finish that project. You should be better at that.[1]
Through a mixture of personal experience and biblical exposition, Carter explores how this cultural message combines with the concept of ‘being used’ by God. She helpfully explains that the Bible does not use the language of ‘being used’, but of vessels; of God moulding and shaping us to be more like Jesus (2 Timothy 2:20-21).
As one who frequently buys into the productivity lie and the well-meaning sentiment of: “just think of how God can use you/or this situation,” I found this particularly helpful. Instead of our value being thought of in terms of usefulness and what we are able to achieve, if we consider ourselves as vessels of God, we reframe our focus to not be on ourselves but rather on God as creator who is sovereign, full of grace, mercy and love for his children.
This message spoke not only to my own soul, in terms of my own motivations, it also challenged my thinking about neurodiversity within our home. I can find myself flipping daily between pride and grief. Pride over what my children can achieve. Yet also grief over the milestones that they may never achieve. Pride as I see them finally accomplish something we have been working hard towards. Yet also grief and frustration when they once again fail to accomplish the simplest of tasks.
God’s Love
In this book, Carter helpfully flips around our culture’s productivity message by helping us focus on the refreshing truths of the gospel. She reminds us of the grace-infused message that God loves us and saves us not because of what we do, but because he loves us.[2] It is not our doing what matters, but our being. Just being is enough for God to love us.
When my brain starts to wonder whether my children will ever be worthwhile and ‘make it’ in this world, I find myself asking, “How will their difference and ability to achieve things affect their identity and who they are in this world?”
How refreshing it is to remember –in the daily grind of life– that God’s love is unconditional and consistent. It does not depend on our achievements. In God’s eyes (the only eyes that matter!) our value and identity are set and secure, no matter what we achieve. Our worth is in Christ, and this is something that is stable and unchanging.
So then, the challenge is to reorient our brains and care more about how God thinks of us than the culture around us. We need to learn to navigate living in a world that will always pull us towards achievement, and instead rest in the truth that we are loved by God and are enough for him. In all our difference and neurodiversity, we are valuable and worthwhile just as we are. It is not our achievements (or lack thereof) that eternally matter.
As we celebrate the ‘small wins’ or grieve the losses, we can have an overarching sense of peace and comfort in God’s never changing, never giving up, love for us. Knowledge of that truth is all that truly matters.
[1] Liz Carter. Valuable, The Good Book Company, UK, 2023, p. 23.
[2] Ibid, p. 52.
Jess Prins is a wife to an amazing husband, Marty and they have two delightful daughters and one dog, who they enjoy taking for walks along the beach whenever they can. Jess works as a ministry assistant at Summerleas Christian Church in Tasmania and in her spare time enjoys sitting in cafe’s eating cake, reading and writing, watching movies, and baking.
The views and opinions expressed on this site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of The 139 Collective. As a collective, we seek to humbly learn from each other’s experiences and remember the unity that we share in Christ even when our current viewpoints on the difficult topic of disability differ.
