Are You Good Enough?

Have you ever wondered if you’re good enough? Have you ever wondered if you do enough for others? Have you wondered if you ARE enough?  If so, I have your answer. The answer is yes. Yes, you are. There. I’m done. I’m kidding. There’s more. Lots more. Seriously, grab some coffee with some pumpkin spice cream and sit a spell J

Being faced with so much sadness in our community lately and many doubts about people, choices,  things I hear that are being said and done, and even things that I’ve heard concerning me and my apathy towards them I have found myself facing a real low point in my life. I don’t doubt that there is a God. I don’t doubt that He created me, that He loves me, and that He has some sort of grandiose plan for me in the big wide world of whatever this all is. I know that I gave birth to two of the most amazing kids and I’m proud of that and I know that in my daily job as a counselor to many, many kids what I say and do matters sometimes, but I have had my doubts, my questions, many of them to be sure, as to why I am here.

 Am I really doing enough? Am I totally and completely selfish that my sweet neighbor lady brings me dinner on occasion and I don’t know what I’ve done for her lately? Am I totally self-absorbed because I’m so involved in my work and the kids’ activities  and making sure we have quality family time in there somewhere, that I forget someone’s birthday? I have heard some harsh things said about people like me (and flat out, about me) that we don’t care, that we are too busy to care, etc. So, for a long time, being the people pleasing person that I was (catch the past tense ‘was’), I stretched myself thinner and tried harder to make people happy. Big mistake!

Most of you are aware that I am a single mom with 2 teenagers. Ok, to be honest Liam is the teenager and Mary Abbott is the pre-teen, but if you’ve had a daughter and she’s been 12, you may as well have started calling her a teenager at the age of eight because that’s when they start trying to be teenagers. My kids and I have a great relationship. We really do! They try not to roll their eyes in front of me and I try not to act like a crazy woman in front of them. That all failed the other day when a woman in a blue minivan was texting and turned in front of us at a red light… I slammed on my brakes, hit my horn and let out a few words that “Momma doesn’t say”.  I thought I was going to have to go to confession right then and there, but I looked over and Mary was snickering. She said “You NEVER say that!” I guess we have some understanding in our family that sometimes we just allow each other to be real. Actually, most of the time we do. I like that. Anyway, I digress. (And to the woman in the minivan who never looked up, dear lord woman you’re gonna kill someone!)

Anyway, So I’m a single mom with teenagers. They are very involved in school sports, JROTC, and youth group. I am also one of two counselors at a school with roughly one-thousand students. We are very active in our church and with our family and I wouldn’t trade our lives for anything. Seriously. I get along well with the kids' dad and his wife and her son. We are a big, strange, happy family.  But, to say this is easy would be a lie. A big lie.

Somewhere along my life’s way I have allowed myself to feel less than. I don’t know who or how or why or what I allowed in my head, but I did. I was married before I married Todd (the kids’ dad). Not everyone knows that and I haven’t felt comfortable sharing it, but I am now. It was during that time I’m pretty sure that I learned that I was stupid, I was too big, I wore too much make-up, I talked too much, I said the wrong things in front of people, I gave stupid gifts, and I was selfish. I was vain, insecure, I was too sensitive, and when I was in a wreck once, it was because I had the radio up too loud. I was never, ever, ever good enough. The tapes that have played through the years have been incredibly hurtful and God how I wish we could learn to destroy those things, but it’s not that easy. In fact it almost seems that we attract other people who spot our vulnerabilities and rip off the scabs of our healing wounds. Whatever the case, we are left feeling broken, beaten down, and never, ever enough.

I had coffee with a friend of mine yesterday and Diana can say something that is like plucking a gray hair. It stings for a second, but you’re glad she said it. She tells me that I’m so distracted trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do, why I’m here, that I don’t see it right in front of my eyes. She tells me that I’m supposed to write. She tells me that my words touch people. It’s hard for me to hear that because I feel like my words aren’t good enough. My writings aren’t good enough… and I hear the tapes playing in my head again. “No one wants to hear what you have to say".

Today at church Pastor Suzanne is in the middle of a series "What on Earth Am I Here For? ". She began to speak and was telling us that our most important purpose in life, our primary reason for being here (here it comes, I think, something else I’m not doing enough of, or not doing quiet up to par)… is To. Be. Loved. What?? To be loved?? Yes. What do I need to do? Nothing. But I haven’t cooked dinner for my neighbor. Dear heavens, you can't cook! Don't do it! You are here to be loved. ME? Yes. Why??? Because God created you on purpose. To. Be. Loved.

Now, I gave a talk at the Rescue Mission last year and I am really fairly good at telling people these things and I do firmly believe it. For you. I know that you, that we, were created for a reason. I know that we were knitted together in the womb and that God knows the hairs on our heads and He knows our names and He knows everything about us. What I had to be reminded today was I need to stop trying so hard to be loved. I need to stop beating myself up for not ‘being enough’. I am enough. God created me in His image and I dare not say that my God is not enough. If my God wants me to do something, by Him, He will equip me to do it and I will be enough, and I AM enough!

I sat in my seat after church with my friend Judy. I couldn’t move really. I looked at her and said “When was the last time you were given a sermon that told you to allow yourself to simply be loved?” Neither of us could remember.

We are so often sadly and mistakenly told that we are not enough. What is even more horrible is that we believe it and we cling to that instead of what we read today in Romans (8:38-39) “I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things, or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.” See, nothing separates us from God and His love. Nothing. Nothing. That means that you are good enough. I am good enough. We are enough.

Suzanne told me today to go and just be. Just be loved. I took a long, long walk today on the nature trail. No music, just birds, the rustling of the trees and other people enjoying nature as well. I am challenging myself to just be this week; to stop beating myself up for not being enough. If the creator of the universe felt that I was worth knitting together, then I must be enough for Him and if I’m enough for Him, then I’m enough and I have a job to do. I have no idea what that is, but I’m listening… not trying too hard to figure it out, just listening.

I challenge you, if you have had those feelings, to just be. Allow yourself to be loved and bask in that. Bask in the glory that you were created on purpose with intention and if for some reason some poor sot out there thinks you aren’t good enough, remember that poor sot, I mean person, was created on purpose as well… and God is working on him/her. Maybe it’s your job to be an example? And if I’m supposed to be an example to the woman in the blue minivan, I failed miserably…. But I gave Mary Abbott a hearty chuckle.

Loved,

Becky

October 20, 2013