These past few months have been nothing but busy. I have wanted to sit down and write something that isn't required of me, you know like something I enjoy unlike another essay or something. Trying to find the time has just almost seemed impossible and then when I do have time to sit down and write, I just stare at the screen not being able to comprehend what God's trying to work through me.
WELL, let me tell you. I finally got it. In the most unexpected time, probably because I wasn't searching for it so hard trying to come up with it. And now that he did, it makes so much sense, because it's really what has been rolling around in me and what God has allowed my eyes to observe. I just haven't realized it.
I was watching a movie and there was particular part of a dialogue that just struck me, I was captivated in an inexpiable way. It went a little something like this:
"No matter how hard you try, you've convinced yourself that you are not good enough. But good enough for who? Who are you not good enough for? It's YOU. You have convinced yourself that YOU aren't good enough for YOU..."
I mean lets be honest with ourselves, how often do you walk by the mirror each day or maybe look at your kids and tell yourselves repeatedly that YOU aren't good enough? Moms, how many times do you look at another and think how they must have it all together because her kids aren't fighting and screaming and she doesn't look like she just lost world war 3? Or dads, how many times do you look at another father and beat yourself because you're convinced he's a better provider than you? Or teenagers, especially the girls my age, how many times do you look at someone else and do nothing but compare yourselves? You convince yourself you're ugly and fat because that girl is skinnier and prettier.
It is a continuous cycle that leaves us all in despair. We end up farther back than when we started and our reality can never meet our expectations. We fall away from who God created us to be because we start to do nothing but try and accomplish God's purpose for some other person rather than ourselves. You can't fulfill the role of an eye surgeon if you're a teacher, it just doesn't work that way. Someone who would try and do that we would all look at them as if they were insane, but in a different sense, that is what we do. We try to be everyone but ourselves.
Everyone has failures, everyone screws up and makes mistakes, and the truth is that you will have failure moments and you WILL mess up, but it's your choice to be happy and to continue on despite of it. It's your choice to look up and give praise to the one who paid your debt and raised your life from the dead. It's not by your doing that you can continue on and it's not by your doing that you can keep going each day, but it is by the grace of God. It's by his grace that you can keep going each day and not make the same mistakes, it's by his grace that you are made new to never make that mistake again.
It's hard to be vulnerable, it's hard to not put up a front that you have it all together. It's hard to be honest with yourself and how you come off to others. But something I have learned is that my scars tell a story, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It's nothing to hide and denying the truth only hurts you worse. Those scars are a reminder to me of times when life tried to break me, but failed. They are markings of where the structure of my character was being welded.
I look at the way God created a bird to care for it's baby and how that momma bird does nothing but go to every extreme to just care for that baby and do it's job the way it was created to. It compares itself to no other bird, it doesn't try to be better or be the best, it just does it's job and is content with it. It's a beautiful thing to watch it just do what is it, and that's enough. We all spend so much time beating ourselves up trying to be anything and everything that we aren't to try and find acceptance when we all ready have got it. God's word says he doesn't make mistakes, so why do we look in the mirror daily and tell him that making us was a mistake? Why do we tell him that the job he has given us was a mistake because we think we can't do it?
The truth is: We are all a bunch of different looking sinners in need of the same looking cross. We are unique individuals created by God himself in need of the same grace to be who he has individually made us to be. In order to fulfill his purpose for your life you have got to stop living for other people and yourself and start living for God only. It's only by him that our imperfections are made perfect. We are a beautiful, chaotic mess. I'm not you, and you aren't me, but you are his masterpiece, and that is enough.
It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. It's only in him that we will ever be enough.
I'm a failure but,
He's my forgiver.
I'm a sinner,
But he is my savior.
I'm broken but,
He's my healer.
I'm his child,
And He is my God.
I am enough. YOU are enough.
As Always,
XoXo. Elizabeth.
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