Am I enough? This is the wrong question. The better question is “Who am I?”. Because who we are, in the very depths and essence of our beings, is what matters. Everything that we do flows from that well. This I do know, you are created in the image of the Eternal Creator, adored and beloved; delightful. His fingerprints are all over you. In fact, He wrote himself into your DNA. And this light spills out of the cracks in your humanity. God with us. Imagine that, everyone carrying some sort of demonstration of the Almighty and limitless Creator. We humans, clay vessels, broken and imperfect, cracked and flawed, and yet, chosen to receive the most unfathomable of gifts, God Himself.
Of course, you are not enough. None of us are. We are dirt and clay. We plod when we want to fly. We try and we stumble. We wound and we injure. We love and we hate, and we lie when we want to tell the truth.
We are clumsy with each other and this life we have been given. And yet, in the midst of this humility, we cradle light. All of us do. You, me and that girl behind the counter. That boy over there, who thinks he isn’t fast enough, smart enough, or brave enough? Yeah, him too. He holds an unimaginable light, the beauty of a God who whispers from the unknown and reveals Himself through His creation.
You can choose what to believe. You can listen to the media and the skeptics, the ones who sit on lofty places and look down on their more pathetic counterparts. The ones who make themselves appear larger by trying to make everyone else feel small. Those voices are loud and insistent. And if we are not careful, we will follow their lead, and make-up over our scars by pointing out the failures of those around us. Or we will hide our true selves, staying small and safe; gray. Timid in the shadows.
Or, you can listen to the quiet voice that speaks in the stillness, that shows truth in the stars and the lives of vulnerable people who lay aside their own fears and try to love other humans a bit better than themselves. Those people are brave, because they give and receive love imperfectly, and this sets them up for failure. Failure because what they want to be is not always who they are. Sometimes they may look hypocrites because they reach for an ideal, and fall short, and their humanity bleeds through. Sometimes they get it right, in small, invisible moments. And sometimes they get it wrong, and everyone notices; trumpets their failures out loud. This bravery, to keep showing up, to keep reaching, loving and pursuing, knowing that stumbling is inevitable, and your imperfection will be on display, is truly courageous, and much, much harder than the alternative.
When that voice come to tell you that you are not enough, because it will; when fear threatens to crush you and pinch you into a cocoon, laugh in its face. Because you already know the truth, you are not good enough. You are a beautiful, imperfect, broken, glorious, courageous human. Sharing space with the rest of humanity in tiny sphere suspended in eternity. So of course, sometimes you will fail, be bold anyway. Of course you will mess up and hurt the ones that you love the most, keep loving anyway. Be brave, and be fierce and let go of a shattered illusion that you have to do this life perfectly. Holding the shards of that ideal only cuts and wounds. Instead, remember who you are, both dirt and grace. This is indeed enough.