I’ve Had Enough, of Trying to be “Enough.”
My effort is never good enough. Another day of hustling, another day of failing. Guilt and shame creep in, whispering the sweet lie to my heart, convincing me to believe it: I am never enough. And I will never be enough.
As a stay-at-home mom in America, I am set up for failure. I am looked down upon for being “just” a stay-at-home mom, and further frowned upon when they find out I’m not currently using my medical degree. I’m constantly asked, Aren’t you worried about losing your career and not being able to re-enter the work force? Don’t you feel guilty for not using the degree you worked so hard for? But if you’re a working mom, you’re set up for failure too. You’re looked down upon for having a job in addition to children. You hear the questions, What is your main priority, your children or your job? Do you really think you can do both well? We rush from here to there to everywhere, doing everything and nothing all at the same time. We are expected to carry the weight of doing it all ourselves, and to carry it well, and we better have lost that baby weight by now, too. (Spoiler alert: I’m still carrying some baby weight from my pregnancy 2+ years ago.) Regardless if you’re a stay-at-home mom, a working mom, or somewhere in between, the bottom line is the same: we have to do it all to be enough.
Furthermore, our culture not only screams at us to do it all, but to do it all on our own. If they made a “Mom Barbie”, there would be a warning label on the box: help not included. We hear our society’s shrieking yells from every direction. Be superwoman! Be supermom! You can do it all, you can be enough, if you just hustle and work hard and do it all yourself!
Enough. We just want to be enough. But what does “enough” really mean? Per the dictionary, enough means: in or to a degree or quantity that satisfies or that is sufficient or necessary for satisfaction.
That’s a lot of little words jumbled together, so let me simplify the definition. Enough means to be what is sufficient, or necessary, to satisfy.
To be sufficient, or necessary, to satisfy….What? Or who?
Who am I trying to satisfy? What am I seeking for satisfaction?
Am I trying to satisfy our society’s endless demands? Am I seeking the satisfaction of being deemed worthy in the eyes of others?
Or am I trying to satisfy, or please, the Lord with the words I say, the attitude I have, and the work that I do?
It’s a lot to untangle, comb through, and tease out. For all my fellow mamas that have little girls with a lot of hair, you get it.
My 2.5-year-old daughter’s gorgeous hair. We’ve never cut it. God has a sense of humor because I’m really, really bad at styling hair.
I want to make this simple and get to the bottom of “enough.” I want to share the truth, and confront the lies.
Truth: You are enough. You are already enough. You, sitting there, reading this, possibly on your phone in your few-days-worn sweatpants and unwashed hair (which is the current state in which I am writing this). You. Are. Enough. There is a Savior who loves you for you, dirty sweatpants and all, because He made you in His image.
Lie: You have to do it all to be “enough.” No, no you don’t. This is a lie our culture wants us to believe. The to-do list doesn’t need completed at warp-speed, and hustling doesn’t get us anywhere fast, except to hit rock bottom. We are commanded to rest, and the Lord rested. The Lord literally did it all—and it took Him 6 days, and then He rested. His to-do list included creating light, sky, all the animals, oceans, and human beings, and it took Him 6 days and He needed a nap after (I’m not entirely sure He napped on day 7, but He rested. And Jesus took naps, so clearly our God is one who does, in fact, nap). Why do we think we need to accomplish everything at lightning speed, when the One who created lightning didn’t do so at a rushed pace? We were not meant to do it all, simple as that.
Lie: You shouldn’t—can’t—ask for help, because if you do, then your effort doesn’t “count.” Yes, yes you can ask for help. And it absolutely counts if you do. In fact, I’d argue that it counts more if you ask for help, because it takes a different level of strength to admit you need help instead of muscling through and doing it all yourself. I’m not sure when in our society we decided that solo hustle was more important than helping and serving one another, but it has destroyed us, especially in motherhood. When you’re home drowning in bottles and diapers and nipple cream and sitz baths and crying children who need fed 400 times per day, we need help. So, so much help. Yet we are ashamed to ask for it, because then it means we can’t do it, which means we are failure. This is a lie. We are not a failure for asking for help; we are stronger for it. As the saying goes, there is strength in numbers. And that includes motherhood.
As a mom, I am perpetually tired. I think most moms are. The tasks in front of me—changing diapers, laundry, cooking, wiping tables and little mouths, etc—never cease. As a mom, my hands will always be busy, but my heart doesn’t have to be.
And that’s what makes all the difference.
The posture of our hearts is crucial; it determines the words we say, the steps we take, the attitude we have, and the things we do. The world is the one that ranks our worth by the work of our hands instead of the posture of our hearts. Our culture does not seem to value the selfless, exhausting, never-ending work that moms do every day, and every night, because there is no “clocking out” in motherhood. But when we change our perspective from working for society’s unattainable approval to serving the Lord, it changes everything.
We will never be enough, or sufficient, for the world. But in Christ, His grace is more than enough for us. I don’t need to strive, hustle, or work myself into the ground to prove my worth to the Lord. His grace is more than sufficient, and His power is made perfect in my weakness.
In Him, I am enough. I am more than enough.
And that’s enough for me.
