“I am not enough”
Those words echoed inside my brain, bouncing around like a ball on steroids. My head began to ache, my heart started pounding, and beads of sweat began to trace my hair. I am not enough… I never have been and I never will be.
For weeks I have been increasingly aware that something wasn’t right between God and I. His voice suddenly became so distant, so quiet. Everything began to turn into shades of grey, I couldn’t distinguish my trains of thought from what He was saying. I knew something was wrong, something was in the way, something very big was clouding my vision from the Almighty God. This has been going on for a few weeks, it’s why I left social media and stopped posting blogs as much.
The worst part was, I couldn’t figure out what it was. I mentally searched my reflection and found no flaw inside my soul. What I didn’t realize was that there was a crack in the mirror, a flaw in my vision.
When I was in Nicaragua, I began to ask God to heal my physical vision. I could spend the rest of my life wearing glasses and contacts, but I believe in a God who heals the blind and raises the dead. Fixing my slightly blurry eyes should be no problem, right? Well, I kept praying for healing and having my squad pray over me and asking the Lord for something to happen. One of my squad mates had the impulse to smash my glasses in faith, so I put that on the back burner for a couple weeks and continued to pray to God for healing. Then my squad came to Costa Rica. I talked to that squad mate again, and she said the impulse to smash my glasses didn’t go away, so I gave them to her and she destroyed them.
It’s been two weeks of no glasses now, and I still can’t read menus at restaurants or passing signs on the road. I know I heard the voice of God, I know that He will heal me here in Costa Rica, but the healing still hasn’t come. Today I finally broke down and asked, “God, you healed the blind with the laying of hands and raised the dead with your voice. Why isn’t my vision healed?” Here’s what I heard:
“You aren’t ready yet. Cindy, I asked you to break your glasses because I wanted you to focus in on what’s inside. You would have never noticed the divide between you and me if you could see perfectly. I am in the business of healing the blind, but I care more about healing your soul. You don’t even believe that you’re enough or worthy of healing.”
God and I began walking through some DEEP inner healing- I took a journal and began writing out my entire life story without filters. Man, that is one of the hardest things I’ve ever written. To write out your life without filters is to point out every lie and every flaw and every sin you’ve ever committed, and I have committed many. As I was writing out some of the pain I experienced from the people around me, one central idea repeated over and over again:
I am not enough.
I see it in the way I acted around my family, how I wanted to prove that I was worth staying or worth pursuing. I see it in the way I approach boys, how is fight so hard for their attention just to prove that I was worthy of love. I see it in the way I dress and eat and basically do anything. All I am is centered around the fear that I am not enough, and the enemy stabs my heart with that lie in more ways than I can count. I don’t know how many people struggle with not being enough, but if I had a fatal flaw that’s what it’d be. Deep down, I’m afraid that I’m not enough.
Oh God, it hurts to type that out. Jesus walked me down into my soul and showed me that lie. It looked like a mighty tree, rooted and growing into everything I said and did. Then I saw Jesus, His hands were outstretched and pierced. My greatest challenge isn’t believing the miracles that God has done, but that Jesus believes that I am enough. Walking on water, healing the blind, raising people from the dead, I find all of those things more believable than the fact that Jesus loves me. Guys, Jesus died one of the most horrible death on this earth because He thought we (wicked humans) were worth fighting for.
I’m worth fighting for. In the eyes of Jesus, I am enough. Honestly, all I’ve ever wanted from this life was for someone to believe that I’m enough as I am, but then I reject people for who they are. I made other people feel like they aren’t enough while I struggled to be enough, and I regret making people feel that way.
Look at your lives friends, look at the gospel. Look at the way the church runs to and from God, how all they seek is satisfaction that can only be found in God. I think all we’ve ever wanted to be was enough, that’s why people do and act as they do. All we’ve ever wanted was to be enough, and nothing and no one can satisfy that desire on this earth. Just look at the garden of eden, how Adam and Eve went from perfectly satisfied people into believing they weren’t wise enough unless they ate a fruit. We believe we can earn this “enough”, but you can’t.
Grace isn’t earned, it can only be given. Guys, the point of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was that we weren’t enough. We aren’t enough to save ourselves, and that’s why we need Jesus. No one on this earth will ever be enough for you and you will never be enough to satisfy that ache to anyone on this earth. That empty hole in your soul can only be filled by the love of Christ, and you find that when you turn to your Savior and believe that He is enough. You’ll never believe that you’re enough until you believe that He is enough.
I’m tired of fighting to be loved or accepted by the world. All I want to be is enough, and in Jesus Christ I am. Every single time. The world does not define my value, only He who said I was worth dying for.
Yea, my eyes aren’t healed, but I know someday they will be. Before I leave Costa Rica, I believe that God is going to fully heal my eyes. I believe that God is physically, emotionally, and spiritually healing my vision, and the first step in that journey is believing that He was enough. If He was enough, then I am enough, and if all He heals is my broken soul then I count myself blessed.
~CLS
