This Is All I’ve Got

I was in the first or second grade, and it was a Friday afternoon ice cream sale at our elementary school. I don’t know how, but little me managed my way through the line without any big cousins by my side. I got up the front counter, looked at all my options, and I declared in that moment that a choco taco would fill my heart’s desire. So I scrambled around in my pocket, pulled out a mix of spare change, and offered it to the woman collecting money. She counted the few coins I held in my little hands, and she said it wasn’t enough. “What do you mean it wasn’t enough!? It was money, and isn’t money what it takes to buy a choco taco?” That’s probably what my little 6-year old brain was thinking, but my 6-year old body just started crying. I tucked the coins back into my pocket, squished my way out of the line, and made it to the back of the school cafeteria with tears rolling down my face. Cousin Jerica was the first to find me. She asked me what happened, and I told her that it wasn’t enough. I didn’t have enough…

I was 6 and that feeling shattered my world. I’m 22, and the feeling of not being enough is still as painful…

This summer was a season of shortcomings. It was a season where I didn’t quite get it right, I wasn’t as perfect as everyone expected me to be, and I wasn’t worth the long-distance. There was a moment somewhere halfway through where I sat on the floor, looked myself in the mirror, and wept. I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. I didn’t know who she was or what she was fighting for. I felt bad for her. She had spent so much time being busy and doing what she thought she needed to be doing that she completely lost herself in the process. She did everything, and she still wasn’t enough.

Somewhere along the lines she let other people’s concept of her define her worth. She thought that if she just did that other thing someone had asked her to help her with then they would think she was qualified. Or maybe if she took on this project then they would take note of her work ethic. Maybe just maybe they would see her as girl worth fighting for.

The biggest problem, though, was that she was a girl worth fighting for. She was a girl who was extraordinary and she failed to recognize that. She had gone above and beyond and did far more than what was ever asked of her, but still I never thought I did enough.

And it was months and months of telling myself it was going to get better until finally it all came crashing down. I pushed myself and pushed myself until I couldn’t keep juggling anymore. I lost my step. Everything fell apart. The crowd no longer saw a girl with a great balancing act, but a girl who was truly not as perfect as she made everyone believe- herself included. I made a mistake, and therefore I let myself believe the lie that I am not enough.

But through whispers and waves, God reminded me that I am always enough. I am quite frankly more than enough. I didn’t need to have the exact amount of change, because God takes whatever is brought to the counter and He delights in it. He won’t turn me away and tell me to come back when I have the rest all figured out. There is no amount of brokenness or confusion that is too big for God to handle. He picks up all my pieces, scattered all over the floor, covered in tears, and He puts them back together again.

He’s taking my not enough and reminding me there’s still a purpose. In my brokenness I am still so worthy of His call. But I can’t keep doing it for the acceptance of other people. It has to be for God- everything and all of it.

I’m closing the door on this absolutely broken season of my life. I’m shoving everything in the closet and walking away, because I’m not fighting to be enough anymore. This is me- broken and all. Take it God; it’s all yours. I am going to be the girl God is fighting for. The girl God is calling to do so much more than live a busy life.

“God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, His verdicts oceanic. Yet in His largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks.”

Psalm 35:5-6 MSG