Good Enough

Coming home has been healing in a lot of ways. And the Spirit, by His grace, has revealed a lot of areas that I didn't even recognize needed healing. My mom the other day pointed out that it seems like the "real me" is coming out again, and I would have to agree.

It's been a long road for me to get here, one that I haven't ever shared all at once, and one I don't even know if I ever could. But I'll share that part of that road has been an obsessive focus on pleasing others. I never felt like I was good enough, and therefore I was always striving to perform, to achieve, to perfect. And it was exhausting. I didn't always even want to be better than others, I just wanted to be better. And specifically, I wanted to please my parents and prove to them that I was worthy of their love. Because I thought I wasn't.

I didn't realize the cost of my perfection until I graduated with my bachelor's degree, in three years, Summa Cum Laude (a GPA related honor). And my Dad said, "You sacrificed all that for this?" I thought my parents knew my GPA. I guess I assumed they'd been tracking it. I thought they cared. And guess what? My dad didn't know or care. My dad was more concerned with my physical and mental health, which was tenuous at best.

That moment was a wake up call. I'd thought all my life that I needed to impress my parents. And now that I had, I found out that what I'd done didn't really matter. And the longer I've been back at home, the more I've realized that the stringent expectations I had for myself growing up weren't my parent's expectations. They were mine. I was the one always trying to prove things. I was the one believing I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't loved. Guess what? I was loved all along.

So I'm starting to relax the expectations I have for myself. I'm starting to accept and acknowledge the love my parents have for me. I've stopped trying to be good enough and just started trying, by the Spirit's power, to do good, to see that life is good. It's been freeing.

Friends, do you believe that you are good enough? That God loves you just the way you are? Because He does. And Jesus gave His life to set you free. May you run towards that freedom today.