Almost Every Woman Identifies To Some Degree With Not Good Enough
I wore the Not Good Enough label as long as my memory remembers. From my first day in ballet class at five years old, in elementary school, in church I always felt not good enough. This unexplainable sense of lacking something deep in my soul followed me into junior high and high school.
Identifying With Not Good Enough
The Not Good Enough belief became for me what my daughter, the professional counselor calls, “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
I still don’t know why I took on the Not Good Enough label at such a young age. I had nothing on which to base that feeling. My parents loved me and I had a good life. Maybe my problem started before I even existed and reflected something that started with Adam and Eve, the sin nature, of the human soul. Even the Psalmist identified with his sinful state as far back as conception.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Psalm 51:5 (NIV)
Romans 5 says sin brought death into the world and reigned even over those who had not sinned like Adam which put every one of us in a not good enough category.
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those
who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam,
who is a type of Him who was to come.
Romans 5:14
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23
The answer to mankind’s not good enough problem was that the only one who was good enough changed our problem and made “whosoever will,” become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. (John 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 5:21)
The Story Of My Salvation
Twenty-six years ago I became a whosoever will and Jesus saved me.
The night of my salvation is still very vivid to me. My husband and I had started going back to church about 6 months earlier. Before starting back, it had been 13 years since I walked away from church and Jesus. My decision to go back church rested on my belief that my two small daughters needed to be in church.
A few months in and I saw my own need.
Our Sunday School class at the time studied through David Jeremiah’s, Escape The Coming Night, a study of Revelation. If you have ever studied through Revelation, you know that it is a place where you will come face to face with Jesus. Which I did. I began to see Jesus and consider eternity. I understood that Jesus died on the cross to save people from their sins and give them access to heaven.
I thought Jesus’ gift was only for those who were good enough.
Surely Jesus did not die for someone like me, someone who knew she was not good enough because her dark and dirty past assured her that she would never measure up. A different life and different ways seemed unattainable. I was convinced that I would never be good enough to live a good life on earth and surely never make it to heaven.
One night at midnight all of my sin and shame came to a head. Laying in my bed next to my sleeping third husband, a video of my life played across the screen of my mind. I sobbed as someone in deep agony as I saw every sinful, dark, and broken deed flicker across the screen. Unwanted memories played out as if happening that very moment.
I remembered the Scripture verse that said, “the wages of sin is death.” I knew I deserved death. I remember opening my eyes almost expecting to see Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. I told Jesus, “I know I am not good enough to go to heaven, and I know I deserve death. But, will You please make sure my children end up in heaven? I need to know that they will be in heaven.”
At 4:30 AM, after hours of despair, aware of my hopeless situation, I could not sleep so I got out of bed. I picked up my Bible and a Max Lucado book, God Came Near. My bookmark in God Came Near was set at the beginning of Chapter 19 in titled, He Forgot. With swollen eyes and a hurting head, hope birthed something new in me as I read.
Max Lucado started chapter 19 with a picture of my experience that night. He talked about his own experience of listing his sins before God repeatedly asking God’s forgiveness. The words God spoke to Max Lucado, he now shared with his reader, me. Those hope-filled, life giving words initiated a new life for me, a life with a new “in Christ” identity.
Here are the Scripture verses shared by Max Lucado in Chapter 19, He Forgot.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:12
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,
and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
Hebrews 8:12
"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord,
"Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.
Isaiah 1:18
When I look back to that night 26 years ago, I now see that as the night my journey with Christ began. If you want to read about my testimony or see my testimony through drama, go to my blog post Our Testimony Truly Has Power To Impact Lives .
Maybe you struggle with feeling not good enough. The truth is, apart from Christ, nobody is. Every woman struggles to see her own worth and value from time to time. We will always fall short when we look within ourselves, and especially when we look back at a past that has defined us. Remember that Jesus died to redefine you.
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us,
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21
Once we say yes to Jesus, everything changes. We are not standing alone in our own goodness. We are standing in Christ, in His goodness. Therefore, from that day forward, no matter how we feel, what we think, do, or say, We are good enough.
