Roots of enough.
Enough for who? Enough for what?
“My best is always enough.” I wrote on the forum.
The question answered read something like: “If you could hear one thing that would change your life and believe it, what would it be?”
“My best is always enough.”
But after posting my answer to the group, and receiving several thumbs-up likes, I regretted hitting enter so soon. I felt like the first half of my plead sentiment had been left off. It should have been prefaced by “My best isn’t often very good, but…”
Because it’s true. And if I’m being even more honest, I often don’t even know what my “best” really is.
While God sees our intentions, effort, and capabilities with pristine perception, man judges what is our “best” according to standards of often-unattainable perfection. This discrepancy- between how God sees and knows our hearts and how mankind values us by our performance- is where the seeds of poor self-esteem are planted and nurtured, and eventually root deeply into every part of our soul’s existence.
A few weeks after I contributed to the forum a song by Tasha Layton that I hadn’t heard for a spell played on the radio in my cute little white loaner car while on the way home from the marina.
“I feel You digging all my roots up. I feel You healing all my wounds up.”
The familiar words to the chorus swirled in my head for the next few hours, as is oftentimes the case when I hear a favorite tune. But this time it felt like this single phrase was somehow stuck, as if waiting on me to find further meaning in it before letting go.
My many wounds needing healing are no secret. I’ve written multiple posts on the many wounds and scars I have, each uniquely representing some form of sadness or trauma that has grieved my life. Many are healed, many more in the process, and most have a distinct origin and specific roots- attributed to and seeded by something, someone, or sometime.
But there was one wound that was vague. It resembled more closely an overuse injury in sports, or a nutrient deficiency that came about through ignorance or neglect. Like these more physical insults, there wasn’t a particular event that ignited the flame, or a memory to explain it. And, also like these, though it had been a very long time in the making, it was not until I recognized the pain it had been inflicting and named it that I realized it, too, had roots that ran incredibly deep.
I never felt good enough.
What is enough? What is my best?
These are questions I’ve had to spend a lot of time grappling with lately. Not on the existential basis that my deeper wound needed, but in a physical sense.
My recent and ongoing journey with physical therapy is somewhat of a reflection of my internal struggle to find balance between rest and pushing. Meeting the expectations of my therapist is not a big deal. That said, he is accustomed to only a statistical 30% of individuals even doing their assigned exercises at home. He hadn’t met me.
Me? I’m often too sore from pushing myself so hard I can’t even make it to my formal therapy sessions- true story. My current appointment average is 62%.
It makes absolutely zero sense given all I know of the science of recovery, and the relative rest needed. (We’ve covered the work part needed… a non-issue for me.) And yet, so much of my identity is wrapped up in being able to do things, that a deeply embedded fear overtakes me when I cannot do those things.
Asking “what is enough?” and “what is my best?” with respect to my rehab offered up new questions that were existential in nature. “Why do I push myself so hard?” and “What am I trying to prove” and “What am I afraid of?”
I haven’t found the answers to these yet. I have a feeling I’m not alone in having them, nor in having them yet unanswered. But I am learning that best includes balance and rest, which can only come from a deeper sense of enough that continues once effort stops.
The problem for most of us is that we confuse being enough with doing enough. And our self esteem is so easily molded by the world that, rather than come from a solid truth (that He who created you did so in His image and you are always enough even when your best is not very good), we piecemeal it together and cut it back down using fragments of experiences and human feedback from when we have done (or not done) enough to measure up and accomplish or perform.
“E for effort” is subjective, and thereby its degree is impossible to fully and properly interpret… except by God. It is the only standard by which our accomplishments should truly be quantified, and yet the only one that is never included in their recognition.
Being enough is about identity. Doing enough is about attainting a goal. Your best is the enough of your identity working towards that goal, and may or may not be enough to meet the expectations and performance measures of others, but will always be enough to meet the performance measures of God.
Who I am is always enough.
What I do is sometimes enough.
Your best, no matter how bad it may be, is both always enough and sometimes enough. It depends on who you are living for and what you are trying to live up to.
Who is defining your enough?
God tells us “your best is always enough”.
No preface is needed.
