Enough

 “You are not enough.” are words many of us hear all day long. We hear it when we get dressed, when they don’t call back, and when we didn’t get the job.  We hear these words and they call us names all the time! Allison shares her journey with these words and now lives being able to believe and tell people otherwise!  She is a witty, compassionate, thoughtful and beautiful young woman….Listen to her story…
– Willow

ENOUGH by Allison Lindsay

My life has had its share of earthquakes, windstorms, and fires, but, as Elijah experienced in 1 Kings 19, “after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.” My collision with Jesus came in such a whisper.

It was the summer before my senior year when I was invited to join a Bible study with a group of women – some I knew better than others. We sat in a giant circle in a living room of a beautiful house, something so unfamiliar to us as a group of college students. I was excited, but skeptical, as Willow introduced the idea of our Wounded Collisions study.

I have always been a quiet person, jokingly describing myself as “painfully shy” in high school and the first few years of college. Through the college ministry I was involved in, along with the first true friendships I had experienced since elementary school, I began to open up. Though things were looking up on the outside, on the inside I still felt unsettled. Unfinished. Incomplete.

“You aren’t enough,” my brain told me, “You aren’t smart enough. You aren’t funny enough. You aren’t beautiful enough.” I worked my way through life situations and relationships with this soundtrack in the back of my mind and the pit of my stomach, always thinking, “What if this is true? What if I will never be enough?”

During this time, I lost my grandmother and was denied from a job to which I felt called. I graduated from Western and started a full time job at a daycare, feeling unaccomplished and lost. Sure, there were things I wanted to do, but as people moved away to start their new jobs, marriages, internships, and schooling, I felt stuck. Just as the Lord asked Elijah in a still, small voice, I also asked myself, “What are you doing here?”, only to respond with excuses.

However, my experiences in small group started whispering to me. I remembered the woman at the well, who’s past Jesus knew well before she started talking, and yet he still offered her the living water giving her eternal life. I remembered the man, a tax collector, who climbed a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus, who was chosen by Jesus. I remembered the woman, who, after hemorrhaging for twelve years, gathered up her courage to touch Jesus’ tassel – and was healed! I remembered the paralyzed man whose friends were so convinced of the Lord’s redeeming grace, they lowered him through the roof to bypass the crowds.

Surely, if these men and women were enough in the eyes of Jesus, then I must be as well! God spoke to me in a whisper, through moments of grace, kindness, and support from friends, mentors, and family. He began to replace the soundtrack of inadequacy
with messages of hope, joy, and belonging. Where I felt unsettled and incomplete, my collisions with Jesus left me feeling whole. I finally felt the calling for which I had searched for so long.

I made a scary move away from Bellingham, started school, and jumped into a new community. I started running half marathons. I opened myself up to a new church community and small group, allowing myself to be known by others. I just graduated from  nursing school and am so excited to start my career and mission as a nurse, caring for people experiencing their own type of wounds.

As I pray for my “daily bread”, I pray for confidence and focus. I pray for strength to continue in the direction the Lord has placed on my life. I pray for the whisper, which after the earthquakes, windstorms, and fires, speaks so clearly to remind me, “In Me, you are enough. You will always be enough for My kingdom.”