Living A Lie

I don’t know when I started believing I wasn’t enough. This lie has been a life-long companion for as long as I can remember. 

As a little girl, my mother explained to me that my biological father had chosen not to be a part of our life. Was I not cute enough? Loveable enough? 

In third grade I realized the few outfits I had weren’t as nice as some of my classmates’ and for the first time noticed that my toe was poking through my too-small shoes. It became painfully obvious that I didn’t have enough.

In middle school, boys teased me about my crooked teeth that made me hate to smile, my stork-like legs that made me anything but graceful, and my acne that was anything but attractive. Clearly, I was not pretty enough.

About that time, a male family member tried to steal my innocence. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. 

I was not a standout high school athlete. I wasn’t musically inclined. I wasn’t necessarily artistic.I was not prom queen or homecoming queen. 

But I was smart - and not just at academics. I was smart enough to convince everyone around me that I was enough. The older I got, the better I got at not letting people see the real me because who could possibly like the unlovable, unattractive, and untalented me? In the meantime, I worked hard to reconstruct an adult identity that could make me feel like I had some, if even small, value to offer this world. 

I look back on this younger version of myself and my heart breaks for her. And it breaks for every person who knows what it feels like to be not enough. 

At 47 years old, I still have to replace this truth with a lie on a pretty regular basis. And what truth do I replace it with? That I am created in his likeness (Gen 1:27) which gives me eternal beauty and value; that he knit me together in my mother’s womb and I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13); that He purposed my life to help others out of darkness (1 Peter 2:9). 

I am loved. I am valuable. I am an adopted daughter who will inherit heaven and the eternal present of HIs presence. 

Do you have any of these lies weighing you down, telling you’re not enough? Do you hear yourself repeating them in your head? I am praying they won’t hold you captive one day longer. God is fighting for us to tell a different story. What is He saying to you?