You Are Enough!

For most of my life I sought to earn my sense of self-worth from others. That seemed to be the way the world worked. I sought approval from those "over me," those whose approval seemed necessary, or at least helpful, to moving my life forward. But there were so many different, often conflicting, demands to be met.

And in all of this, I was always at someone else's mercy. No matter how hard I tried, my life and my future were always in someone else's hands and outside of my control.

I also discovered that no matter how hard I tried, I simply could never please everyone. It was impossible, with so many to please and so many conflicting demands. It seemed there was never a way to please everyone, or to please enough of them, often enough, for my life to work out well. Besides, I didn't have a clue about who I was, since I was always trying to be who others thought I should be.

Fortunately, I grew tired of all of this. I wanted a sense of myself. At one low point in my life I finally decided to stop trying to be who everyone else thought I should be and simply be me. I accepted my understanding of God's perspective of me. I believed that I was loved and appreciated simply because I was child of God, not because of anything I had or hadn't done. I decided that if God loved me, that was good enough for me. That was what gave my life worth, not anything I ever had done or ever could do. I decided that I was enough, because God made me enough. I knew that I had worth simply because I existed, as is also true of everyone else.

I knew that there was only one of me, and that nobody else could be me. So I decided to simply focus on being the best me I could be, by simply expressing my me-ness. After all, no one else on the planet had my me-ness. If I didn't express it, nobody else could. And the world would miss out on what my me-ness could bring to the party. And I knew that this was also true of everyone else.

I encourage you to stop trying to live everybody else's version of your life. Live your version of your life! You are enough because God made you enough! What could you possibly add to what God has made? Simply give yourself permission to live what God has already made in you. No one else can do that.

Charles David Heineke, 2013Spread the word. Please copy freely.