Emily is a brave innovator with new thoughts, fresh vision, and the audacity to execute new plans. I have the privilege of working with Emily at Elim Church and she is bringing life to the children’s ministry by living out her values. I have witnessed Emily embrace creativity and curiosity as staples in her daily life and I am excited to share her story of transformation – as she has discovered and honoured her values.

Living My Values is Changing My Life

by Emily Elian

I have been through quite the journey this year, discovering what I value most. I learned that my values are a unique combination of characteristics that make me…me. God has created me to value certain things more than others in myself and if I don’t live them out I feel frustrated and in-genuine.

To start this journey, I prayed to invite God into my reflections. I reflected on the “mountain top” experiences and the “valley” experiences in my life. As I found my first “mountain top” experience I looked at the list of values to see which were being expressed. These moments happen when I feel inspired and fully engaged in my work – coming up with new ways of doing things, thinking outside of the box, and solving problems. These are times of pure creativity which are inspired by my curiosity. After this realization there were more and more “mountain top” moments that bubbled to the surface of my mind – all involving creativity and curiosity. I found many more values reflected within my “mountain top” experiences but these really struck a chord with me. Then I reflected on my “valley” moments (moments of frustration and dissatisfaction). For me, these times happen when I suppress my natural curiosity and creativity. I used to feel nervous and not-good-enough to really try new things. I used to gloss over topics I didn’t know about and stick to the status-quo of doing things. Inside, tons of questions would fill my mind – I wanted to know more about the topic and try something new, but I was scared of looking ignorant or dim. I recently realized that I was expressing a form of pride. I was too scared to try or learn things because I wanted others to view me a certain way. I was being in-genuine and ignoring the natural curiosity and creativity which God gave me.

Knowing what I value changes the way I live, make decisions and live my life. Curiosity and creativity are characteristics that are important to me. I need to live them out for me to feel fulfilled. I now know these values can influence all my decisions – work, family/friends, ministry, finances. They are important parts of my personality that make me feel frustrated when I do not make them a priority in my life. God gave me these values so that I could be true to myself (who He made me to be). Now that I know what is important to me, I can make decisions to make sure I am living out who God created me to be.