When You Do Your Best and It's Still Not Enough

You know what hurts worse than feeling like you're not good enough?

Being reminded that others didn't think you were good enough, either.

When you take a risk and it doesn't pay off.

When you fail the test, the marriage, the audition.

When you're judged for a parenting mistake, or a bad decision.

At the core of not being good enough is the fear of rejection. And the only thing worse than rejection from others is rejecting yourself.

You may not have realized it when it's happened, but I'd wager you've rejected yourself before. T

Told yourself that you're a disappointment, gross, ugly, too vulgar, too quiet. Too much. A failure. Or what about this... what about the times where you KNOW you hit the brief, made a bullseye, totally nailed it. But others STILL don't think you did enough? What about then? That can lead to self-rejection, too, trust me.

There's a line in a Benjamin William Hastings song that goes, "I'm not a lost sheep/I just feel alone in the flock..." and boy, is that not a powerful way of expressing rejection -- of self and by others.

Dear one, receive these words:

You were created in God's image (Gen. 1:27).

Whether you fail or you fly, at the end of the day, you still bear the fingerprints of Divinity.

You're not a microcosmic accident.

You're not a mistake.

Your failures are not periods.

And God does not come to you with a heart of criticism, but with compassion.

With open palms. Open arms.

Hear me: drop the stones against yourself. Whenever you reject yourself, you reject the image of Christ within you. And when they throw stones against you, use them to make an altar. Use them to frame a mirror that looks at all of the wonderful successes and beautiful disasters you've lived through. When other people reject you, remember that you were chosen and seen by Jesus.

The mountains may shift, and the hills may be shaken, but my faithful love won't shift from you, and my covenant of peace won't be shaken, says the Lord... -Is. 54:10