To the Girl Who's "Not Good Enough"

Tired. Beaten. Broken. Hurt. Does the world ever make you feel this way? Like maybe you just don’t matter? Does life keep throwing you curveballs so fast that it makes you completely forget how to even hold a bat? Do you feel like you’re in a maze and just keep making wrong turns?

This is exactly how I felt after my first year of college. I felt like with every new door I tried to open it slammed right back in my face. There were many times where I wanted to give up, just for a moment. I wanted to just lie down and take a break from the constant battle that I felt like I was fighting. Heartache. Confusion. Bitterness. Loneliness. Guilt. Worry. These were my battles. And sadly, I was losing the fight with every one of them…

I wanted someone to reach out and rescue me. I wanted someone to tell me that those feelings did not define who I actually was. I wanted to feel good enough.

This is all a girl wants. We want to know that we. are. good. enough. We want to know that all the efforts and thoughts we put into our day are deemed as worthy. We worry about if that cute guy is going to notice our new hairstyle, if the teacher will compliment our work, and if our parents notice how much we’ve helped around the house. And through this worry and effort, the enemy loves to attack our hearts to make us feel like everything we do is worthless.

So we take those feelings and use them to define who we are. If we feel sad, we label ourselves as depressed. If we feel confused, we label ourselves as not smart enough. If we feel lonely, we label ourselves as not being good enough to keep someone’s interest.

We feel hurt so this must mean we’re broken. We think that if we carry around our burdens maybe it’ll keep us from doing anything to make us feel that way again and we can eventually “fix” ourselves. Maybe we can protect ourselves from the world.

I’ll admit that I’m guilty of doing this sometimes. I’m a 21 year old woman and there are some mornings where I look in the mirror and immediately see a burden staring back at me and all I want to do is crawl back under my thick covers and hide from them. I can go throughout my day smiling and laughing on the outside, but inside is a different, dirty story.

But here’s the best part about all of this: God sent His son to carry those burdens and defy those labels because He sees me as good enough and He sees you as good enough too. Jesus took all of those feelings, thoughts, heartaches, and doubts with him into Heaven as He said, “It is finished.”!

So when I look at myself in the mirror and see those labels staring back at me, He gently whispers a beautiful love song into my heart that states: I am good enough. We don’t have to fix ourselves, God can and God will. He will take every label you’ve ever used and replace it with His joyous truth. All you have to do is ask!

When I see nothing, God sees everything. {Matthew 10:29-31}

When I see pain, God sees strength. {Isaiah 40:29-31}

When I see a mistake, God sees someone who was beautifully and thoughtfully created. {Psalm 139:13-16}

Sisters in Christ this is my heart cry to you: That you would see just how wonderful God has made you and that you would hear His whispers of beautiful truth into your hearts! That you would understand just how deep the Father’s love for us is that He would reach down from His royal throne in Heaven in order to deem us worthy of His precious Son’s sacrifice! My beautiful sister, You are so good enough.

He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters. Psalm 18:16 {NLT}