Hello there, friend,
What you say about being good enough versus striving for more make me think of the old saying that God loves you as you are but He refuses to leave you that way. There's a tension in it that can be hard to understand. How do we accept ourselves, but also strive to be better? Why can't we leave well enough alone?
I can give you the quick-and-dirty answer for myself. For me, the stakes have always felt high. My parents had a messy divorce; I was an angry, withdrawn kid. I didn't have a happy childhood and as a teenager, I knew any change in my life would have to come from within me. So, when I got married, I stepped away from that old story, and when I became a mother, I stepped even farther. But all of this stepping away actually brought me closer to myself -- to my anger and my pain, to letting go of who I was to become who I truly am.
The process of refining who I am, learning more and realizing I still have work to do is a part of life I've come to accept. It wasn't until the last couple of years that the idea of "good enough" even came into my scope of understanding. I've never felt good enough; I've always felt broken. Accepting myself as good enough has been more difficult than working through my issues.
I think the key is to think of it in seasons. There's a season of good enough and a season for working on ourselves. There's a season to press in and another to rest. If we slow down long enough to figure out which season we're in, maybe we can give ourselves the grace we need to be where we are, to let go of the striving in either season and simply be.
xo,
L
