As a woman, mother, partner & friend.
For years I believed the lie that I wasn’t good enough. Not as a mother, not as a partner, not as a woman or friend. I allowed the insecure projections of ill people around me to play with my head. I believed these lies from the devil due to my lack of understanding of the depth of God's love for me.
Instead of looking for evidence of my worthiness in God and His works in my life, I looked for evidence from toxic and abusive relationships like the one I had with my Dad. I searched for evidence of my worthiness in useless lovers and half-hearted friends. I carried the weight of never being entirely enough to be worthy of being fully loved. My lack of self-worth was fueled by my desire to people please and betray myself to the benefit of others, while simultaneously covered by my generally high level of responsibility, above-average levels of self-discipline, obsession with growth, the constant seeking of knowledge, intellect, and overall highly ambitious drive.
My lack of understanding of God's love for me stemmed from my issues with my father. For the past 10 years, I felt “If my own father can not love me properly, how could it be possible that God loves me unconditionally?” I questioned God in anger at times asking why He would give me a father who thinks so little of me and that is incapable of loving me as much as he loves to serve himself. I failed to realize that my father's human flaws were not a reflection of a Godly man or God's love for me at all. At best they reflected a deeply wounded person with a narcissistic personality disorder.
I believed lies that I was inadequate in every way based on this pain and distorted thinking. I believed I was inadequate as a mother because I listened to my father's insecure projections as a man that told me I wasn't good enough unless I was chosen by a man, any man. It was easier to believe this lie because I wasn’t studying my bible for truths, instead, I was leaning on my own understanding and inherent wisdom. I believed I wasn’t good enough to be loved because I absorbed years of his verbal abuse that told me “This is what you deserve.” When it came to emotional neglect, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, boundry violations, and degradation I had to take it. In my mind, if the man I looked up to so much and loved so deeply as a child could treat me so terribly whenever he got in his feelings then maybe he was right, I was just so inadequate and infuriating as a woman that I was undeserving of genuine patience, kindness, grace, protection, provision, celebration, or understanding. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)
Even though I knew early on that my father is a sick man with deep-seated emotional issues, I still took his actions personally every time. I wanted my father to love me enough to heal himself, to seek professional help. I wanted my love for him to be enough to save his soul even if he constantly rejects God through his actions and words. While I resented him deeply for his character and treatment of me, I prayed for him in private relentlessly. I cried out in pain to my friends and mother often seeking shelter from my greatest heartbreak.
I didn’t start to see a shift in my desire to be loved, protected, and validated by my father until I began to focus more on my relationship with God as my true Father. I began to read my Bible daily at the age of 27 and haven’t stopped since. Submitting myself to God in ways I never imagined. I started searching for evidence of God's love, the kind shown to women like me in the Bible. I found evidence of the love God has for me through my friends, other family members, and the men in my life like my Grandfather who adores, protects, and provides for me happily. I found it in the love my two younger brothers have for me as I know they would never intentionally harm or betray me, as they treat me with such softness even in my weakest and ugliest moments. And I found it in my son who constantly reaffirms me with his genuine kind words. Even my son’s father repented for his old ways and began to consistently treat me with kindness and respect.
The more I studied, prayed, and submitted to God in the most uncomfortable of ways I started to see evidence of God's unconditional love for me in my blessings of daily life. As I focused more on Him and my relationship with Him I began to grow uninterested in pleasing anyone else. As my focus shifted to Him I could see myself more and more through His eyes.
This wasn’t a process that happened overnight. It has taken time and I just recently made my big leaps forward to completely exit the cycle of seeking security and validation in all the wrong relationships.
Year 29 has so far been a year of spiritual growth for me perfectly summing up the past two years of intense healing and revelations in my life. I have found clarity, stepped into a space of true abundance and prosperity, learned to trust God completely throughout this pregnancy, survived additional heartbreak, and come to full repentance of my sins. I finally learned to accept my present place in life and learned to stand unapologetically in my boundaries. For the first time amid the chaos of life, I feel an all encompassing sense of peace and safety. I feel safe because I am no longer seeking security outside of God, my security now is reliant on His promises and love. I have peace in the present moment and faith in the future.
I am in an era of life where my joy, grief, gratitude, and peace coexist simultaneously as I graciously grow through the challenges that face me. Every day I wake up to another answered prayer. I watch as vicious attempts by the devil to destroy me crumble in front of my eyes. I experience unexpected favor and kindness at every turn. My son and I are in our groove living our best lives and I don’t feel crushed by single motherhood. I can truly say I love myself more than ever but not superficially. On a deeply spiritual level, I embrace the intrinsic value within myself with no doubts or displeasure for who I am at this present moment in life. I have nothing left to prove. I live solely to serve and bring glory to God's name. In doing so I bring joy to myself and all those that are connected to me.
We do reap what we sow and I am proud of what I have sown spiritually over the past decade of my life.
Our highest commandment in life is to love. To love God & to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39). Therefore self-love is contained in that commandment. I would be a liar if I told you it didn’t hurt to let go of the people and attachments that gave me an illusion of love and security but the grief I feel is worth it because what I have found instead is everlasting. As my second son is due to be born just two months away, I feel free, I feel whole, and I am delivered and reborn. I feel God's love within me and all around me.
God's true love, and the true love reflected to me during this pregnancy by my family and friends has cast away the fear in me (1 John 4:18)
So if you too have struggled with feeling inadequate and unworthy I am here to tell you, God loves you & salvation is yours if you seek it fervently.
Affirm to yourself today:
"I am MORE than ENOUGH!"
"I am MORE than adequate!"
"I am WORTHY!"
"As a mother"
"As a woman"
"As a human, sister, daughter, partner, lover, and friend." [feel free to substitute whatever roles best describe you]