A Gift for Mom! 🤍

The Table Meant For You Will Have An Open Chair

In: Living

2 Minute Read

By Tabitha Yates

Friends walking — Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com

If you are having to fight to have a place at the table . . .

If you are having to beg for an invitation . . .

If you are feeling like a third wheel as you search for a sense of belonging . . .

If someone is making you feel less than, unworthy, underappreciated, or unwelcomed . . .

Dear friend, don’t you spend one more minute clinging to those people and their approval or lack of it.

You deserve to belong.

RELATED: I No Longer Sit At Tables Where I Might Be The Topic When I Get Up

You are worthy of having an open invitation from people who desire your company, who truly see you and value the gifts you have to offer.

The table that is meant for you will have an open chair.

You won’t have to fight for your right to be there.

There won’t be someone else in your seat because no one else can be you.

That is your superpower.

RELATED: Life is Too Short for Fake Cheese and Fake Friends

The people who are meant to be in your corner will stay.

The friendships that offer unconditional love as you grow will stand the test of time.

Your circle might decrease in size but watch it increase in joy, peace, acceptance, and encouragement.

If you couldn’t find a seat in the place you expected to, it doesn’t mean you don’t have any place, friend.

Don’t kill yourself wondering why they don’t like you . . . Jesus loves you.

Don’t try to earn their approval . . . you’re already enough.

RELATED: Sister, Don’t You Dare Question Your Worth

Stop defining your worth by other’s rejection . . . you were bought and paid for with the precious blood of Christ.

Please know your value and adjust your circle accordingly.

Previously published on the author’s Facebook page

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

Tabitha Yates

TABITHA YATES is the author of #1 Best Seller, Jesus and Therapy: Bridging the Gap Between Faith and Mental Health. She is a mental health advocate, speaker, and suicide attempt survivor, known as The Redeemed Mama on social media where she writes about faith, mental health, and God’s redemptive plan. Tabitha has been published in Yahoo News, MSN, Relevant Magazine, The Mighty, Love What Matters, and more. Through practical advice, personal anecdotes, and biblical insights, Tabitha has used her platform to help renew the faith of millions of individuals struggling with where their faith and mental health intersect. She lives in Southern Arizona with her family. Join her on Facebook at The Redeemed Mama-Tabitha Yates. Find her book here- https://a.co/d/6EbpRP1

Sometimes Your Pain Becomes a Ministry

In: Faith

I never wanted kids. Let me just start there. It almost ended my relationship with my now-husband because I was so certain motherhood wasn’t for me. Funny how God works, isn’t it? Fast forward to me pregnant with our first, and suddenly I wasn’t worried about whether I wanted to be a mom. I was worried about whether my baby would survive. The ultrasounds kept revealing new concerns, new issues, new reasons to hold my breath. I prayed prayers I didn’t know I had in me, the kind that come from a place so deep you don’t recognize your own...

Keep Reading

I Lost My Sight at 16—But It Wasn’t the End of My Vision

In: Faith

After my father shot me, I lay in a hospital bed, and my world went dark. I was 16 years old. The injury left me completely blind. But the darkness didn’t stop there. As my physical sight disappeared, something else came into focus—the depth of the wounds I had carried long before that moment, wounds I had never fully allowed myself to see. For years, I had learned how to survive without asking too many questions. I had learned how to minimize what hurt, how to explain things away, how to keep moving forward as if everything were normal. But...

Keep Reading

Ministry Starts Inside Your Own Four Walls

In: Faith

When people hear the word ministry, they often think of missionaries, or the pastor who preaches every Sunday, but in our home, ministry belongs to all of us—even our kids. Growing up, I didn’t think of myself as a ministry kid. Still, when my dad packed our old Astro for the summer and we all piled in, we were on mission. Each kid had a part to play in my dad’s evangelical magic shows (yes, you read that right!). My brother would juggle, my older sister sang, my middle sister flipped the projector slides that shone pictures of Jesus on...

Keep Reading

These Holy Small Things

In: Faith, Motherhood

My 8-year-old-daughter has recently taken up sewing, to my simultaneous delight and chagrin. My delight because I too love sewing; my chagrin because her enthusiasm often outpaces my own abilities, namely, in the undertaking of tedious projects with no pattern. Take, for example, the cloth doll diaper we designed and stitched up together. Granted, the design was fairly basic to draw up and scale. But the minuscule nature of the work, both for my hands and head, was enough to throw me into existential questioning. It was one of those moments when you wonder how the sum of your life...

Keep Reading

Life Lessons from My Grown Children

In: Faith, Motherhood

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.” – Rabindranath Tagore Quietly communing with a loved one in the early morning hours is such an intimate and precious time. Visiting with one’s grown child when all is dark and still is one of life’s purest pleasures. I remember the conversation clearly. My daughter’s husband, small children, and father were all asleep as we whispered and chatted. She and I are both fidgeters by nature, unable to be still for long. This inner restlessness must be remedied, and we are compelled by biology to...

Keep Reading

My Prayer Is Simple Now: “I Believe; Help My Unbelief.”

In: Faith

I have spent most of my life in faith. Not circling it or analyzing it from a distance, but inside it—learning its language before I even realized I was learning it, shaping myself around it in ways that felt as natural as breathing. I was raised in Christian Science, which is a very particular kind of faith. It’s not really about “believing” in the way most people think. It’s about understanding. Aligning your thoughts with what is ultimately true about God and reality. If you can understand rightly, you can be well. If you can see clearly, healing follows. So...

Keep Reading

Your Worth Is Not Someone Else’s To Measure

In: Faith, Living

Insecurity is something we all carry in one form or another. For me, it has probably always looked confident and outgoing from the outside. But internally, it can feel heavy, complicated, and exhausting at times. And when someone comes along whose behavior reinforces those insecurities, it amplifies what was already there. There was someone I had hoped to genuinely connect with, but it was clear from the start that the feeling wasn’t mutual. From the beginning, their wall was up. No matter how kind I tried to be or how carefully I showed up, it never came down. Their distance...

Keep Reading

Lord, Give Me Faith Like Hannah

In: Faith

Woman walking in field with hand in wheat

Hannah knew what it was like to feel forgotten. She often clutched her empty womb and thought Surely the Lord has forgotten me. She knew the bitter sting of feeling isolated and alone. She knew the anguish of praying day after day after day and seeing no fruit, not even a bud, from her faithfulness. Hannah knew what it was like to feel like the weight of the world was on her, and her hope may have dwindled. Even those around her did not offer encouragement. Quite the opposite—they did their best to sow seeds of discouragement. Yet Hannah pressed...

Keep Reading

God Carries Me Through the Deep Waters of Change

In: Faith, Living, Motherhood

“Ahhh!” My underwater scream garbled in my snorkel tube as the manta ray’s cavernous mouth swept a hand’s distance from my face. My fingers tightened around the surfboard until my knuckles ached. My arms trembled. I jerked my head side to side, searching for my daughters, Mia and Megan. Recent college graduates, they had joined me on one last mother-daughter vacation before launching their adult lives. They floated easily on the vibrant Hawaiian water, relaxed, trusting. I wanted to borrow their calm. Earlier, our guide had explained that the LED lights built into the surfboard attracted plankton the way college...

Keep Reading

Faith After a Rare Disease Diagnosis

In: Faith, Motherhood

My pastor frequently speaks of “kid pain” and acknowledges there’s nothing like it. I can testify to that. After nine months of uncertainty and unexplained issues following the birth of our now 4-year-old daughter, Harlow, we finally received her diagnosis of Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex Deficiency (PDCD), a life-limiting mitochondrial disease with no cure and no FDA-approved treatments. It was heartbreaking. In moments like these, a parent can fall into complete desperation. You go through a range of emotions almost too fast to name: fear for your child’s life; anxiousness about how much time you’ll get with them; overwhelming grief. And...

Keep Reading

Jesus Was Thinking of Me on That Cross

Faith

Jesus Was Thinking of Me on That Cross

I Love You With All That I Am

Kids

The Table Meant For You Will Have An Open Chair

Dear friend, don’t you spend one more minute clinging to those people and their approval or lack of it.

RELATED: I No Longer Sit At Tables Where I Might Be The Topic When I Get Up

There won’t be someone else in your seat because no one else can be you.

RELATED: Life is Too Short for Fake Cheese and Fake Friends

If you couldn’t find a seat in the place you expected to, it doesn’t mean you don’t have any place, friend.

RELATED: Sister, Don’t You Dare Question Your Worth

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Tabitha Yates

Sometimes Your Pain Becomes a Ministry

I Lost My Sight at 16—But It Wasn’t the End of My Vision

Ministry Starts Inside Your Own Four Walls

These Holy Small Things

Life Lessons from My Grown Children

My Prayer Is Simple Now: “I Believe; Help My Unbelief.”

Your Worth Is Not Someone Else’s To Measure

Lord, Give Me Faith Like Hannah

God Carries Me Through the Deep Waters of Change

Faith After a Rare Disease Diagnosis

Get It Now

So God Made a Mother

The Table Meant For You Will Have An Open Chair

Dear friend, don’t you spend one more minute clinging to those people and their approval or lack of it.

There won’t be someone else in your seat because no one else can be you.

If you couldn’t find a seat in the place you expected to, it doesn’t mean you don’t have any place, friend.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Sometimes Your Pain Becomes a Ministry

I Lost My Sight at 16—But It Wasn’t the End of My Vision

Ministry Starts Inside Your Own Four Walls

These Holy Small Things

Life Lessons from My Grown Children

My Prayer Is Simple Now: “I Believe; Help My Unbelief.”

Your Worth Is Not Someone Else’s To Measure

Lord, Give Me Faith Like Hannah

God Carries Me Through the Deep Waters of Change

Faith After a Rare Disease Diagnosis

Previous Post

Next Post

You May Also Like