It’s becoming more apparent to me that I like to be liked, maybe more than that I want and need to be liked and yet when it appears people do actually like me I push their acceptance away,
“but if they really knew what I was like”, “their only saying that because…”
So I both want to be liked and yet cannot accept it when I am. I know, it’s exhausting just reading it back, think how Carl feels!
I head the fantastic Christy Wimber speak a few weeks back and something she said actually took some of the pressure off,
“not everyone will like you, if you set out to be liked by everyone you will compromise on everything”
um…ouch and wow!
Without noticing somewhere along the way I started to turn myself into the person I thought others wanted me to be, but when you become so pliable are you being true to who God has made you to be?
In a few months time Carl will be taking on the role of Rector of two lovely Churches in Sussex and while I am excited I am also becoming consumed by intrusive thoughts “you need to be more like…”, “what will be expected of me”, “will I be the kind of Vicar’s wife they want/have had before”, “will I be a disappointment”, “what will they think when they read my blog and see that I’m bonkers” and on and on, I think you get the idea.
Yet God didn’t make me to be who somebody else would like me to be. He has made me the way I am and that needs to be enough, both for me and the congregation I become a part of. I can’t maintain a facade of who I think people want me to be and frustratingly it starts with me accepting who God made me to be and to stop picking holes in myself. I need to embrace who I am and take hold of the truth that I am enough! And yes I can still want to improve things about myself and grow in a lot of areas but the starting point is I AM ENOUGH. I need to look up to God for my acceptance and self worth rather than outwardly to others because if God doesn’t define me other people and things will.
Christy Wimber also said
“I don’t get to choose if I am valuable enough but I do get to choose if I accept it or not”.
I am valuable whether I think so or not, the question is am I going to waste my life arguing and debating that with God while pointing out the areas He could have done better in?
I have believed that if I’m this or that, if I do this or say that then I will be enough but that is skewed thinking, I am enough because a God is enough and He sees the potential in me, I just need to trust in Him.
I am enough.
FOOTSTEPS TO THE FATHER 