The Me and You That is Enough

It’s been awhile since I have written here. I have been asked why and I had no answer as it was not on purpose. As I think about it perhaps I needed some filling before I could pour out. Perhaps I needed to listen before I could speak. Perhaps I needed to be before I do. Perhaps I was entering into what God invited me into…

I found myself in a counseling office recently surprised by something super high school that triggered something much deeper within me. I was almost mad at myself for having such a deep emotional response to something so seemingly stupid. I turned 40 this year. And at the age of 40, I think I would hope that when people act dumb, I won’t. I think I expect more from myself and when people hurt me with their ignorance or their games or their pursuits, I want to be that person that can just let it roll right off my back, like I don’t even care…

But I do.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe I care too much. Maybe I want too much. Maybe I hope for too much. Maybe I love people and want that love in return in places I shouldn’t. So when I feel like a pawn in a game of chess or disposable like just another thing to move one from, it hurts. But I don’t want it too. I want to be tough. I want to be apathetic. I want to move on and let people who hurt me be the pawns because then my strong response protects me. But I have never been able to muster up being that person. Because being that person robs me of the love I am called to.

So I sat in this office looking at his clock and his file cabinet and his candy jar and this counselor strikes something deep within in me. It goes a long, long, way back. It goes so far back that I find I don’t want to travel that many miles. And I don’t want to share it here because it cuts so deep and it’s too much. And I realize that this current experience was a trigger and this trigger was God’s invitation to a healing He wants to do within me. See, it isn’t as simple as we experience something hurtful and we feel lousy or get upset. What my counselor suggested was that we experience something that activates or triggers our own self belief that is already there and has been for a long time.

Awesome. So my self belief needs healing. And I could wallow or I could enter into what God has for me.

I said “Yes.” 

Sometimes, I think all we can do is say yes to what God has for us in the midst of pain and hurt. Yes, God I need Your healing and I want it. I wait on it. I am hungry for it.

I so lean into the Lord for His healing of my own self belief to be made more whole. I often live with this incessant voice that screams at me “You are not enough!” I don’t seem to be put together enough, magnetic enough, smart enough, graceful enough, educated enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, interesting enough, rich enough, sacrificial enough, spiritual enough, giving enough. I know I am not alone. I know that because I sit with you. We have coffee. We  go to parties together. We converse. We complain. We laugh. We tell story. We share meals. We work together. And we, often find ourselves living with this constant voice that wakes us out of our slumber into insomnia using it’s power to keep us up in the night playing out all that we haven’t done, all that we need to do, all that we are failing at. This voice it keeps us from our dreams. It tells us it isn’t possible, we don’t have what it takes. This darn voice tells us to run away when maybe we should come close. It is mean and it whispers and it screams and it hounds us. This voice is the very voice that has shaped our self belief for who knows how many years telling us we are not enough.

My heart and passion is that we would be a people who would say yes to God’s invitation toward healing and allow the painful triggers in our lives to awaken us to what it is about ourselves we have believed for far too long. Its time to hand those beliefs over and let God’s beliefs about us be bigger.

God loves you and that should be bigger than their absence.

God says you are wonderfully made and that should be bigger than the size of your jeans.

God rejoices over you in singing says scripture and that should be bigger than their words of disappointment.

God says you’re the apple of his eye according to the Psalmist and that should be bigger than not making the cut.

God will never leave you nor forsake you and that should be bigger than their abandonment.

I could keep going but I wont because you have dishes to do and bills to pay and coffee to drink and Downton Abbey to watch. But as you do those things, say YES with me to God’s invitation toward the you that is “enough”.