Don’t Tell Me I’m Not Good Enough…

When you’ve lived for lots of years, you have lots of stories. I believe our stories are meant to be shared for the benefit of others, so I’m sharing a part of mine with you today. 

This memory many years ago while living in Ohio is still vivid. I’m sitting in my pickup truck, parked in the driveway of the apartment I shared with my abusive husband. We rented the upstairs portion of an older home. Wooden steps lead to the 2^nd floor from the outside. I stared at the door with tears in my eyes. I dreaded going in because he was there. What personality waited on the other side? Would he be high and happy or a raging lunatic? My prayer was something like this as tears wet my cheeks. “God, I want you, but I know I’m not good enough. I still smoke cigarettes and I can’t stop.” That was as far as my prayer could go before it hit the wall, that barrier that made me “not good enough.” 

At that time my barrier was cigarettes, but I had other barriers. Unwed pregnancy, divorces, alcohol, drugs, sex; there were many broken rules… I was taught it was all sin, against the rules and would send me to hell. I was raised to believe that breaking the strict rules we were given by churches we attended would cause me to be eternally dammed. If I died while wearing pants or a bathing suit while swimming in a pool with boys, or in a movie theatre or dancing; without having asked God for forgiveness, it would mean burning in hell’s fire. I sang the songs, Jesus loves me, The Old Rugged Cross, and Amazing Grace, but they all lacked meaning. Their words couldn’t penetrate the barriers built by man and held up by me. 

There’s another experience still vivid in my mind. At 14 years old, I was raped behind some apartment garages on my paper route. I had gone behind the garages to smoke a cigarette a friend had given me. I wanted approval and acceptance so badly that I was willing to risk the threats of hell for smoking. I can still see the knife poking in my side… And as I understood it, now I would have the sin of a sex act condemning me to hell, even though it wasn’t my fault. When I came home crying and muddy, my mom asked what was wrong. I was afraid to tell her because I had broken the rules with that cigarette. When her attempts to get me to talk failed, she slapped me in frustration, so I made up a lie which further condemned me. That slap silenced me for years. My secret would stay buried as higher barriers surrounded my heart.

Today, I thank God that the dividing walls have been torn down and I’ve forgiven the hurts of abusers past. But that stinking thinking, “I had to make myself good before God would love or accept me,” was one of the most damaging lies that could be planted in the mind of a little girl. It became so ingrained I couldn’t receive true love from anyone. I didn’t deserve it and I wasn’t worth the effort. 

There were two abusive marriages in my story. I remember how hard it was to break through the negative thinking with the third marriage. We’ve been married for 34 years now. My husband has always been good about constantly telling me he loves me. We could stand face to face, and he’d tell me I was beautiful, or he loved me, and I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I’d turn away, laugh it off or degrade myself somehow. They were just words, like the songs I sang as a kid. It took years before I could hear those words and even begin to receive them with a quiet thank you. 

The biggest way the churches hurt me as a child was by misrepresenting the God I’ve come to know. Frequent church scandals exposed over the years compounded the damage. It’s no secret, so I think it’s time we’re honest to confess. God sees, knows, and still loves… Wow!

God is so much bigger in my eyes now. I can’t point to a specific event that caused a shift in my thinking. Sadly, it wasn’t the church that even played a large role. It was very personal between God and I. Hours alone journaling, spilling my heart out on paper, reading books and scriptures, even still trying to do everything right. I put on my Sunday best and the “church smile,” regardless of what was happening around me. I was careful to check all the boxes for time spent in prayer and reading the Bible. Doing those things did make me feel more accepted, but the truth was, my check boxes just made me proud, arrogant, and critical of others who didn’t act the part or fit the look.  

Yet, God’s work in my heart continued. I was gaining insight, understanding, and becoming more open to seeing the inner workings and the effects of my story. I felt encouraged to dig deeper, but not until I was ready. I wasn’t being forced to believe anything about God and it never felt like religion being shoved down my throat. 

You don’t wake up and your brand new just because you check the boxes or look the part. Transformation is a process. It takes time, and it’s not always pretty. Do you know that when a caterpillar is in the cocoon, it’s not that its body slims down, it grows wings and gets pretty colors. It’s body literally becomes nothing. It’s just goo inside the cocoon. We don’t see how it happens in the lonely darkness, but we know transformation took place when we see the butterfly break free.

I had to work up to being ready to allow the process. I had buried things so deeply; my hard heart needed to be bulldozed. I can pinpoint the day God began the deep healing. I had just come home from a Sunday night church service. I was a mess of emotion. Something had been triggered which caused me to act out in a way that my husband sent me to my room. That enraged me further, but I went. As I lay in the dark bedroom sobbing, God began his surgery. I described it as being filleted alive and left wide open – for years. Looking back, I know why. This process took years. It was a spiritual work between me and God. Others played small roles and I am grateful for those people. Most of this work has been done with material from an organization called Mending the Soul, which I’ve gone on to facilitate support groups through. We walk with others who have suffered from the cruel hands of abuse, working through a 250-page workbook in small groups, for as long as four months. As a facilitator, I revisit my exercises right along with the group. I’m amazed as God continues to show himself to be my faithful healer, increasing the understanding into my own story.

I feel closer to Him. It’s not that he was ever far away. It was those barriers. He truly loved me, so there was nothing forced. There was no abuse involved and he waited, right there with me the whole time.  He never took his eyes off me as he waited for me to see, for me to trust enough that I could see my own worth to him. He waited until I could receive his love and love him in return. 

You may be wondering why God didn’t stop the bad things from happening in the first place. I wondered, too. God gave us freedom to choose. He didn’t want an army of lifeless robots. We get to call the shots. But not everyone chooses well, and we know bad things happen, even to good people. I don’t believe that God causes the bad, but I know he can bring good from the bad. He’s done it in my life.

You may also be questioning as I have. Couldn’t God just instantly heal memories and emotions? Yes, I believe he could, but what good would that have been? I would have been grateful, but I never would have gotten to know myself or know him in the same way. I wouldn’t have the same understanding to be helpful to anyone else. The process is a treasured gift that can keep on giving. 

So, you can’t tell me I’m not good enough anymore. Don’t tell me when I don’t have it all together, God doesn’t accept me. Don’t judge me because I still have a habit or hang up you don’t think is appropriate. Don’t dismiss me because I don’t believe exactly like you. Don’t tell me that I must act and look a certain way and must follow your rules. And don’t you dare tell me that I’m not loved by God!

I know I’m not the only one who lost faith because of the actions of people who bore the name of God. I pulled away from belonging to a congregation for a time, but I’m back. I want to belong. I need to belong to something bigger than myself. I still believe there’s hope for churches to become communities where I can thrive. I believe I’ll find people who are willing to be vulnerable enough to be honest, authentic, and human, imperfections and all. I want to find those willing to express their love of other humans through more than words on a website, but love expressed through action. That’s the place that will accept me as I am, the real “imperfect” me. 

The church I’m attending now has a sign on the wall at the entrance, “No perfect people allowed.” I pray that they let that be true for me and let it be true for you, all of you who have been hurt in a church. Let us come as we are. Love us as we are. Let God be the one who does the cleaning, because there’s no better surgeon. Being filleted alive at his hand, brought me more life than I could have ever imagined. It brought me true life. 

Remember that old hymn I mentioned, Amazing Grace? It’s grace! It’s all grace, not our efforts. You can’t make yourself good enough. You don’t have to earn God’s acceptance, approval, or love, so stop trying so hard. And you don’t have to fear rejection because God’s grace really is amazing!

If you are the victim of any kind of abuse and looking for support, visit https://mendingthesoul.org

To find out if this kind of support group is for you, visit https://avisibledifference.org