How long can I go before that thought pops into my head? "Not good enough."
My husband would probably tell you that according to the number of times I have rearranged the furniture in any given room in our new home that I've secretly had a new tattoo inscribed on my body with that phrase. Yikes! This whole Jesus life has me pushing to see the potential of Christ in each human being. If I'm not supposed to judge people then I'll judge furniture, pictures, and accessories. They don't have feelings- it's okay I secretly think.
Slippery slope.
As tough as this is to admit there's a reason why I'm so good at blurting out, "not good enough" to the pillows on my sofa. I've been crafting these three words for years. I can slay someone down to shreds with a few short sentences that infer a lacking of some degree. My sword heavy in selfish standards. My sin a delight to the enemy.
For a better part of my life, I upheld the worst kind of comparison standard- the manner and style with which my mother chose to love me. Yep. I'll never forget my freshman year of college when my roommate would receive small boxes of care packages from her mother who was a single parent at the time, just like my mom, and I got upset with my mom over the phone and told her that it'd be nice if she sent even a card to me telling me that she loved me or missed me. Oh burn mom! Get it right I thought. To which my mother replied with a shaking in her voice, "I'm sorry that the way I do things isn't good enough for you Summer." The reality was that she probably had $22 in her checking account to last until the end of the week and there I was on the phone swinging my sword with no regard for her or my high school sister still at home under her roof.
Mom sent me a card the following week. As I saw her handwriting on the envelope sideways in my skinny little campus mailbox I heard her whisper in my ear, "I'm trying." That card is still in my possession.
Fast forward to now. Enter Jesus stage left. Here I am with two young daughters of my own and thinking that by finding my identity in Christ, as a daughter of the King, as an heir to the glory of God that my emptiness in all things would be filled. That my perception that I needed my mommy to be just right for me would disappear because Christ is all I need- only, I still have such a wanting. Couldn't I learn as a mother myself what was going on in my mother's head all those years I needed more of her? In present day mom would help me or do something for me and have to bolt and I'd think to myself, "You couldn't stay just five more minutes so I could finish putting the groceries away before you hand me the baby and say- love ya, bye"? Knowing intellectually that so many people in this world would cherish anyone in their life that would come to their home for any manner of help and comfort. My heart still cried a whimper of "not good enough" from time to time with a sadness and stinging.
So, I started talking out this post in my head, about how I wasn't letting God fill the hole in my heart, and how I needed to drench my whole self with the Holy Spirit when God spoke up, stopping me abruptly in my tracks. I was standing at the sink and he said, "let me play this out for you Summer..." God said, "Have you wanted your mom to know Christ and have him as Lord of her life more than you wished she would step up to the standard of mothering you've created?"
Dang.
Did I long for her Joy in Christ as much as I longed for her to bring me temporary happiness?
Have I prayed for it in equal or greater time? Enter tears. Enter a deafening silence to my wanting. Delete self-appointed standard.
Dang.
Did I long for her Joy in Christ as much as I longed for her to bring me temporary happiness?
Have I prayed for it in equal or greater time? Enter tears. Enter a deafening silence to my wanting. Delete self-appointed standard.
All of the sudden the reservoir where I once found a drought was filled with a flood of images. Images of all the silent sacrifices my mother had made for me over the years. I saw how God had used HER to get to me. I saw where she had seen MY selfish ways and still loved me with a desperate heart. The only desperation I held was my own, not hers, not in this true joy I had come to know in a life with sin forgiven. I stopped what I was doing and grabbed my prayer journal. The last sentence says, "I created a new prayer."
News flash. I'm human and an expert sinner. God gave Christ and he died because all the prophets before him weren't "good enough" for the people of Israel to see that God was the creator of all things truly good and created in Joy and in one last hail mary God said- see this, know my love, that you cannot earn or lose, as I give it to you in completeness through a perfect man who will suffer the sin of the world.
No matter how bad or strayed or selfish I have been my mother has always been there for me in some form or another. We are two imperfect people, experts in sin and still learning the way of love, with one another to cleave to as we make the journey back home. Thank goodness God didn't stop with, "not good enough".
