Grace Isn’t for Me.

This post has been sitting in my drafts box for awhile…

It isn’t enough to be me. 

Jessica is simply not enough.

This is one lie which I now realize has played on repeat throughout my life. Since I was a small child, I remember moments and times when it just wasn’t enough to be myself. I had to wear a mask. I had to be better. Prettier. Smarter. I had to like boy bands.

I identified this lie over the summer when I was wrestling with the question of why I didn’t believe there was grace for myself. I realized the grace which I invited others to know through Jesus was something which was not a part of my internal dialogue. I assured others they were created by a loving God with design and purpose. Yet I question why my feet are a funny shape, or why I am not more self disciplined, or why I have such a weird sounding laugh. I tell others how Jesus wants to know them and love them passionately. I tell Jesus He can’t possible want to know me. I hide from His romance. I tell others Jesus does not mearsure them in success and failures. I meticulously count the value of my accomplishments and balance them against my failures, hoping the columes will give me a positive value. They never do.

So this is how I lived; pouring out the grace of Jesus to others and keeping none for myself. 

And I didn’t know why.

It took a venn diagram, two cups of mint tea and a few hours of journaling to dig the lie out. It had dug it’s roots deep into my understanding of who I was. And to me, I simply wasn’t enough.

This is why failure hurts so much, it confirms the lie. It’s why I am driven to have a life of adventure, it defies the lie. It is why I am terrified and obsessed with success. Success would either show my ability or reveal the places I am lacking. It is why grace is not for me.

Grace is for the whole who miss the mark. I am not whole. I am not enough.

I wish I could say identifying the lie was the hard part, but it wasn’t. My friend the neuropsycholgist student told me it only takes 21 days for a thought process to become permenant. It takes a life time to change it after. 

So this will be my journey, the path of learning to trust Jesus when he says I am enough. 

Continuing the adventure, 

Jess