You are not good
enough. You are not smart enough. You are not productive enough. You are not
talented enough. You are not disciplined enough. You are not Christian enough.
You are not… enough.
Lies. All lies. Lies I told myself. Lies Satan told me.
Lies I believed. Until they broke me.
And in my brokenness, God made me whole.
I have always been the good girl. The one who went to
church, obeyed her parents, didn’t party, didn’t get into trouble. And I grew
up into a good, Christian woman. A good, Christian wife and a good, Christian
mother.
But being a good, Christian woman wasn’t enough. I could not
live up to my expectations. The Proverbs 31 woman I am not. I could not live up
to God’s expectations (or what I thought were his expectations). For years I have
asked God to change me. But he didn’t. I stopped reading the Bible because I
felt condemned. I could not live up to it. I didn’t attempt to have a quiet
time or devotions because I never kept it regularly. I wasn’t disciplined
enough. I didn’t pray enough. I wasn’t enough.
One day, I made an honest statement to an elder in my
church. I told him I felt condemned when I read the Bible. He paused a moment,
and then said, “That’s interesting. When I read something I feel I’m not living
up to, I feel challenged to try to do it.”
It opened my eyes. I still did not know how to do it, but I
saw there was another way of living. A way of feeling challenged to live it
instead of feeling condemned.
Then the depression hit me this spring and while reading the
many books that gave me insight into myself and my relationship with God, I
made a discovery. Though I knew it was impossible to keep the law of the Old
Testament and that Jesus died on the cross to abolish the law, I had tried to
keep Jesus teachings in the same way as the old law. And keeping Jesus’
teachings to the letter is as impossible as keeping the old law.
There is no possible way I can “Be perfect, therefore as your
heavenly Father is perfect” as Jesus taught in Matthew 5:48. The only way I am
perfect is through Jesus’ blood. He alone has made my imperfect perfect.
I am enough because Jesus made me enough. My freedom is
through Christ. I am free to be who God created me to be. I am worthy.
Therefore, I will never be the Proverbs 31 woman. My house
won’t be perfect and my meals (other than taco salad) won’t be perfect. I won’t
keep schedules or to-do lists. I won’t be productive in the way most define
productive.
But I will be the best Gayle Gresham God created. I will
rest in God’s way, not mine. I will seek Him in my way, not the way others do.
I will trust Him and Him alone. Because He made me be enough.
For more on being enough, read Brenè Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection.
