“I am enough.”
This confession acknowledges that even if you are not like others in culturally or religiously valued categories, you can find contentment in who you are.
In her New York Times bestselling children’s book I Am Enough Grace Byers imagines a young Black girl reflecting on this truth:
I’m not meant to be like you; you’re not meant to be like me. Sometimes we will get along, and sometimes we will disagree. I know that we don’t look the same: our skin, our eyes, our hair, our frame. But that does not dictate our worth; we both have places here on earth. And in the end we are right here, to live a life of love, not fear…to help each other when it’s tough, to say together: I am enough.
You may not possess the athletic skills, family lineage, societal position, intellect, body type, skin color, or gender that feels like it measures up to what everyone else seems to be holding up. You may not be acquiring what the rest are applauding. But you, right now, just as God created you, are indeed enough.
This doesn’t preclude our passionate progress toward personal growth. We, each of us, are on a journey of becoming more and more fully who God has created us to be. We’ll spend a lifetime advancing toward this goal. Sometimes sprinting. Sometimes limping. But always moving.
But this confession does mean that as we proceed, we leave behind envy, shame and self-loathing. We find joy in who we are at each moment, refusing to be anyone else or bend toward any other expectations beyond God’s.
This is the confession of David:
“How you made me is amazing and wonderful!” (Ps. 139:14 NIRV)
I urge you to look in the mirror today and repeat David’s truth to yourself: “How God made me is amazing and wonderful!” Don’t worry about not being who others want you to be. Instead, wonder at all that God has made you to be. You don’t need to be someone else. Just be yourself. Contentment can come from who you are.
“God is enough”
This confession affirms that even if you are not like others in culturally or religiously valued categories, you can find contentment in who God is.
Even if all were stripped from you–fortune, future, family, friends–if you still had God you would have enough. Even if you didn’t meet a single measurement on someone else’s lists of “must-do’s” or “must-be’s” or “must-have’s” or “must-see’s”, if you still had God you would have enough.
This confession doesn’t mean we put up with injustice, the forcible taking of what is divinely destined–ours and other’s. It doesn’t mean we don’t lament loss–ours and other’s. But this confession does mean that even in pain and in protest we find ultimate satisfaction in God alone. He is always sufficient even as we fight against the trauma or tragedy behind the insufficiency we face in life.
This is the confession of David:
“Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” (Ps. 63:3 ESV)
Look up into the sky and say these words aloud for yourself: “Your steadfast love, God, is better than life!” Living in God’s love is the only living David longs for. Without this love, there is no life, even if all else ever desired is present. With this love, there’s nothing like life, even if all else ever desired is absent. Even if you hold nothing, if you hold God, you hold everything. He, alone, is enough.
Let these two confessions help define your direction today.
