ENOUGH!!!!

"Failure - When your best just isn't good enough."

Man... Larry Kersten sure knows how I'm feeling today. I am exhausted. The past week I have run around like crazy, busted my butt, and used every ounce of my energy trying to get everything done that is needed, and trying to do it to the best of my ability. Yet, last night while laying in bed, I felt worthless. I was going over my week and realized that while I felt like I did well this week, it seemed no one else even noticed. Then my mind got going, and next thing I knew I was awake at 1:00am crying.

I thrive on "thank yous" and "great jobs." Not because I know when I do a good job, but because I feel like I never do good enough. I constantly feel like a failure. I could spend five hours on a project that would normally take two just so that I can be sure it is perfect, and if I don't hear a "thank you," I will spend the evening trying to figure out what in the world I did wrong. I know that I am too hard on myself... I've heard it for years. In middle school, I wasn't allowed to take the advanced classes because I "think too much." What the crap!?!? Who knew you could think too much! Back then, I got upset because I wasn't allowed to jump ahead and take the classes I knew I could handle. But now I know why they wouldn't let me. I spend so much time trying to please everyone else, including my teachers in school, and don't pay any attention to me or my relationship with God.

After thinking for a while last night, I realized that I am insulting God by thinking I am not good enough. He made me... "fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139:14)" By wanting praise from the world in the form of "thank yous" that seem to never come, I am forgetting that I am rewarded everyday for the things I do. I am rewarded with the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins, even the over-thoughts in my head. He allows me to be here and have the experiences I have because I am glorifying Him by doing His work to the best of my ability. Even if I feel like it isn't enough.

So, Mr. Kersten... You are wrong. You may have gotten me thinking what a failure I was for a short period of time this morning. But then God showed me that I needed to stop dwelling on my "worthlessness," because it doesn't exist in His eyes. So when you don't feel good enough, remember...

"There is time in which to be, simply be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who He wants us to be. It is then that God takes our emptiness and fills it with what He wants." (Madeline D'Engle)