When You live Under the Weight of… You’re Not Good Enough

“Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, she answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter.” Ruth 1:20

“You’ll never be good enough.”

That’s the label I functioned under for nearly a decade.

I didn’t know it would it stick for so long. I didn’t know it would cause me to live under the weight of perfectionism. I didn’t know it was these very words holding me back.  Suffocating me at times, because I feared failure. I feared that I really won’t be good enough. I really won’t measure up to anything special.

I was seventeen when my counselor spoke these words over me. “You’ll never become a nurse. You are just not smart enough.”

“You’ll never be good enough” is what I heard. And continued to hear.

Labels whisper lies.

Have you had harsh words spoken over you? What label do you function under? Maybe it is a label you have placed on yourself, like Naomi? Maybe you have had a string of hurts and disappointments and you have labeled yourself?

Maybe your label reads:

Burn-out

Exhausted

Unloved

Confused

Angry

Insecure

Discouraged

Defeated

overwhelmed

This label stuck as I began my career as a nurse. I worked forty plus hours a week to prove I was enough. Determined to be the best wife, the best daughter, the best friend, even the best Christian. Christianity quickly became a list of rules I followed, because I could measure my progress. The lie of this label snuck into all aspects of my life.

I lived from a place of deception rather than from a place of freedom.

Live under a weight of a label and it becomes apart of who you are.

Dressing the label up in the name of Christianity doesn’t make it any better. Anxiety and restlessness will find way to your soul…trying harder is never the answer.

I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance. John 10:10

Motherhood yanked the label off like an old Band-Aid stuck to a wound. I could no longer hide. I could no longer pretend. I could no longer live up to the label that screamed lies. No matter how hard I tried I could not control my children.  For the first time in my life I needed Holy Spirit… I could no longer hold it all together in my own strength.

I could no longer find myself worth in what I did right…I was desperate for a savior.

The lie of not being enough screamed each time my children “failed.”  There were days I felt if I would crush under the pressure…until Jesus!

Labels are always rooted in a lie. A lie always produces behavior. Behavior shapes our destiny. What we believe will be seen in the way we live.

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 27:3

Bonnie Ray in, Finding Spiritual Whitespace speaks right to my soul, “That’s what I’ve tried to do. Time and again. I take my roller of forget, try to wipe away anything and everything inside that hurts, that worries me and makes me sad. I smooth our frazzled fragments of memories so nothing disturbs my peace or breaks my faith.

But life doesn’t work that way. We aren’t empty canvases. We can’t really smooth out what’s rough, what’s jagged in our souls. Even though we try.”

It’s not about trying harder. It’s not about sweeping your hurts and disappointments under the rug like they never happened. It’s getting away from the lies that have shaped us for far to long. It’s leaning into Holy Spirit, even when experience tells us we can do it alone.  It’s replacing those lies with spiritual truths and enjoying His peace and joy in our lives.

Identify the lie and replace it with truth, and you could be:

Free

Loving

Confident

Content

Joyful

Peaceful

stable

Today we are trading these labels for words of truth. Our Redeemer is waiting to redeem us from the lies of the labels we wear.

What labels have you lived under? What areas of your life cause you frustration, you could be believing a lie? Surrender the lie and Jesus will reveal the Truth.

Love you, sweet friend!