You Are Enough

After a month off, yoga started back up this week (hallelujah and all the praise hand emojis).  As we start each class, our instructor always shares an affirmation for us to think about during our practice.  This week, she shared some things that she has been struggling with and then declared that our affirmation would be: "I am enough."

I think that "enough" is a concept that everyone struggles with, but I think especially women and moms feel this pressure to be "enough."  What is enough?  Who decided that was enough?  Will I ever be enough?  Now am I too much?  What can I do or change in order to be enough?

I've struggled with "enough" my whole life.  I'm a type A, goal-oriented, perfectionist.  Some of my OCD tendencies come from my mom, and my opinionatedness and hard stand on the way I see life definitely come from my dad.  But my perfectionism?  I attribute that to my parents' divorce.

I was four-years-old when my mom and dad separated.  One of my earliest true memories is of my fifth birthday party being held at my grandma's, where my mom and were living at the time.  I had a rainbow pinata and I got a Minnie Mouse book that had my name as part of the story.  As a child, I got it into my head that my mom was somehow not perfect and that is why my dad left her.  Now, as an adult, I know that is not the case.  Honestly, my parents are so different that I'm not sure how they fell in love in the first place, but I'm glad they did...otherwise I wouldn't be here, but this idea of perfectionism, even though my five-year-old self didn't even know that word, started to grab hold of everything I thought about.

I needed to be the best at everything.  I needed to be the smartest.  Don't show anyone your weakness or vulnerability.  Be perfect and people won't leave.  But somehow, my perfect never felt like enough.  I would attain one goal only to feel like the next one was the thing that would make me truly happy and known to those around me.

The thing about being known though, truly KNOWN, is that it requires vulnerability.  I still struggle with this.  I absolutely hate letting others see my house a wreck or see me a wreck.  For this reason I panic and get irritated when people stop by unannounced.  I need time to put on make-up...a bra...and then sweep, dust, pick up and possibly cook a five-course dinner! If people see the me I wish I was, instead of the me I actually am, then they will love me...or at least like me.  If I can be perfect, or at least seem perfect then I will be enough.

But am I?

That's the question that still nags at the back of our minds even when we try our hardest.  Am I enough?  Did I do enough?

The answer is yes, but it has very little to do with you or anything that you've done, because there is only one thing that you can do to be enough.

Accept the gift of forgiveness by accepting the sacrifice of Christ.

That's it.  That's all you have to do, and that's all you can do.

"On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." John 14:20

We are enough because He is enough.  We are in Him and He is in us.  And that...that is enough.  That is all there is.

The God that made the moon and stars loves you.  You. The real you.  He is not impressed by our Pinterest or Instagram worthy houses and meals.  He doesn't love you more because you tithe or love you less because you don't.  There is not one thing you can do to make God love you more, but there is also not one thing that you can do to make Him love you less.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast" Ephesians 2:8-9

I can wrap my head around this.  I know all of it.  But getting my heart wrapped around it?  Easier said than done.  Truly believing that I'm enough?  I'm working on it.  But I am.

And so are you.  You. Are. Enough.