Good Enough

We try so hard to fit in.

We give up so much to be accepted. We surrender our purity, our confidence, our joy, our morals, our identity, the very core of who we are. We erase our faces, physical and spiritual, to draw a facade that matches theirs. We force our hearts to beat a certain rhythm, our feet to move a certain way, our lips to spill certain words, and our bodies to fall into the line which they’re all following, a line which leads to a horrible darkness shrouded by fake smiles. We sacrifice all that is good and holy and beautiful in ourselves, all that we have been blessed with, an identity worth more than anything this world can give.

Beautiful, you were not created to blend with the crowd. You were not created to live up to their expectations, to strive to fit the mold they demand for you, to live a life blinded of the loving Father and Savior who died for you.

You know that burden society presses upon your shoulders? Don’t pretend you haven’t tried to meet it before. We all have, at some point in our lives.

All of us have been tempted to believe the lies:

You must be pretty enough. You must be smart enough. You must act like this, talk like this, walk like this. You must do this, be that. You must be accepted. You must be good enough.

But the haunting whisper always follows:

You have failed. You will never fit in. You will never be good enough.

These lies push us to shame. They leave us in the dirt, confused, shattered, and having lost sight of our identity. There is the lingering question: Do I have any purpose at all?

My friend, I cannot measure your purpose. I cannot even begin to express the enormity of the life in store for you. You cannot even dream of the plans He has for you. There is so much goodness, so much accomplishment, so much joy that your mind cannot begin to fathom it.

Guess what? You can live that life. You can discover your true purpose, behold the unbelievable plan He has for you. You don’t have to try to meet society’s impossible expectations. You don’t have to sacrifice all that you are, strip away your identity and your true beauty, in order to be another face in a crowd. You don’t have to wear a fake smile.

Instead, you can trade it for a real one.

You are good enough. Darling, you are more than simply “good enough.” Why? Because you have been created by the Creator of every ounce of beauty, of magnificence, of brilliance, in the entire universe. You have been created by the Creator of the mountains, of the sky, of the ground, of every living thing and every mystery even science has yet to understand. You have been created by the hands which cradle the stars, the hands which bled for you.

The face you see when you look in the mirror? The face behind layers of makeup you may hide it behind? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that face. There is nothing wrong with those features, no matter what the world tells you. There is a reason behind everything God does, and God does not make mistakes.

This is what makes you beautiful. Society has such a twisted definition of “beautiful,” and you are not to believe it. Beautiful is not just a word, not a social label. Beautiful is what we all are, beneath our masks. Beautiful is you. Beautiful is what society calls your “flaws.” Beautiful is the face you should have no shame to hide.

You know, people like to tap you on the shoulder and brightly reassure you, “How you look on the outside doesn’t matter! The inside is what’s truly beautiful!”

Only the outside actually does matter, just not how society claims it should. It matters because God created your outside to appear exactly the way it does. Please, do not believe you are “ugly.” Don’t even joke about it. You are unique, sculpted by the King to be just who you are.

However, the inside is what matters most. It takes a beautiful person on the inside to recognize that they are a beautiful person on the outside, and not just that but why they are a beautiful person on the outside. A beautiful person on the inside is a person who has given their life to Jesus, a person who has sacrificed their fleshly desires to live the spectacular life in store for them. A heart that has been given to Jesus transforms you from the inside out, leading you to live that life. 

Yes, Jesus does tell us over and over that there will be suffering involved in this life. There will be sacrifice. There will be pain. Despite this, Jesus promises that He will never leave us. His joy, His peace, and His love are always right there beside us, even in the worst of tribulation. This tribulation is not eternal, but will someday end, and when it does there will be an ultimate reward in store for us.

You, my sister, are beautiful. You are loved. You have a purpose.

You are not alone, and you are worth it.

Please, do not believe the lies pressured upon you. Instead, turn to your Savior. His arms are always open for you. You don’t have to be “good enough,” because you are so much more than that.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

1 John 3:1-2