I remember the first time I stepped on a stage.

It was my kindergarten graduation and as I accepted my diploma, my teacher, Mr. Reem, set me on the platform behind him and put his arm around me.

He told the audience I was a sweet little girl who never stopped smiling. I was beaming as the audience and my parents stared back at me proudly waving.

That was the first time I had felt seen and heard.

And man did it begin a lifetime of performing to attain that feeling again and again.

Our world teaches us from the time we are very small to be seen and heard and that’s how you get somewhere in this life. The one’s that are talked about and seen the most are the most worthy.

A mom recently told me of her five-year old coming home full of anxiety because she didn’t have “skinny jeans” like the cool girls.

How in the world does a five-year know how to study what is cool and already feel inferior to her classmates?

Because we are taught how to perform from birth and how to seek out whatever masks fit in order to be accepted.

We have an innate desire which craves love and acceptance. So we will twirl and whirl and do whatever it takes, even if it means wrapping ourselves in so many layers we don’t know who we are in anymore.

I carried my craving for acceptance into my adulthood. My masks became my identities and where I received the most acceptance: Being a good wife, mother and “good christian lady”.

A mask is anything you hide behind or find your identity in outside of Christ. 

If I heard I was great mom, I ran myself ragged to be a greater mom. If I heard I was a great christian, extra bible study, extra prayers.

So, you can imagine when a chemical imbalance entered my brain and I began yelling at my kids like a psycho and my “good mom mask” began to slip no matter how much I adjusted it, I became quite undone.

Then add to it my marriage crumbling before my eyes, my perfect Christian marriage mask laid in a heap of rubble before me.

I was broken, ashamed, and naked before God.

There was nothing to hold onto but Him. Nothing to wrap myself in but Him. Nothing to cover up my nakedness with, but His love, beauty and grace.

As I wrapped myself in Christ’s perfect love, I felt whole for the first time in my life.

I began learning my worth no longer depended upon my being “good enough”  or being seen or heard. It was completely dependent upon His goodness and perfect love that casts out all fear. As I came to Christ with my nakedness, He clothed me in His white robe of righteousness.

Friends- I wish I could say I no longer struggle with this, but I’d be a liar. Just yesterday I woke up with that feeling of not good enough. I wonder if you ever feel the same?

When we find ourselves in this place may we know this and whisper this prayer:

“Help me to step off the stage Lord. Help me to stop seeking the spotlight for acceptance, but step into your light where I’ve been accepted all along.”

The world tells us what we need is to be seen and heard, but really, what we’re all longing for is to be loved. May we go and bask with the One who loves us right where we are and not because of what we say or do, but simply, because we are His.

And I promise when we do that, we will realize: His love– was, always is, and always will be:

Enough.

{image source: canstockphoto.com}

Sharing is caring!

Facebook

Linkedin

Twitter

Pinterest

Buffer