Many times I sit down to write about something and I feel like the long of the short of every single post is “The answer is God”. And really, that is the truth, He is the answer.

One day my therapist asked me how I continued to find hope through all that I am walking through. I told him God.

Now, he is a Christian therapist so I kind of laughed when I said it because…well…duh. He looked at me and said “I think you should write about what you do, and how you do it, so that you can encourage other women going through it as well.” I laughed again and shrugged the idea off. I answered him that it would be a very short book because it would start with “know God” and end with “read your Bible”.

We both had a good laugh about my bluntness and he closed the conversation something like this: “That is true Kristan, but sometimes it is nice to have real flesh and blood to hear encouragement from so people know they are not alone.”

Oh.

I guess I hadn’t thought of that.

For many years I have been given the message that I am not enough. That I am not fit to serve. That I should sit down and stop writing and be quiet; the discouragement messages go on and on.

When my therapist made this suggestion of encouraging others by writing, it brought back all the old messages I have heard over the years (yes, even from fellow Christians). Things like:  “you have nothing new to say, it has all been said before” or “what makes you think you have something to share?” and even, “this is not your season you have other things to focus on”.

I took these things to heart thinking that they must have known better and decided, after much discouragement, that I would tuck away the desire to serve God and encourage others through writing. I was convinced this must have been something my flesh desired and not something God created me for. Yet the desire never went away, and the calling never quieted in my heart; in fact it grew deeper still.

I struggle with the low-self-esteem end of the pride spectrum. I tend to devalue myself into a place where I end up believing that I am nothing special and that God will overlook me in Kingdom work for a multitude of reasons (which are all too easy to list). In fact, I am pretty sure I can list the reasons why to not use me far faster than I could think up even a few of why He would.

The struggle is really real. Pray for me in this! In fact, I did this just recently at a meeting with my pastor while discussing a potential program at church. I opened up with why I was really a wreck and not fit for service. *Facepalm*. Can you imagine going into a job interview and presenting them with all the qualities you have that would make you a poor employee? Ugh. Yep. That is where I live all too often.

But God. He is so gracious. He is right there in all our struggles. All our mess. All our self-issues. Thank God we have Jesus within us to combat the flesh.

As fun as it is to joke about my self confidence disaster, the spiritual war over our self value is real. The enemy knows what will get to us and he knows just the right way to keep us in that place of self-shaming pride. Whether it be low self esteem or inflated sense of self, both live on the street called Prides way, and that road leads to no where good, which is found in the cozy little village of self-focus. Thankfully all of these streets have an intersection called The Way.

We know that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6).

At any point on the roads to self-focus we can turn onto The Way by remembering who this is really all about. Take a step back from whatever is going on in life and look at the situation with an eternal perspective. Is what I am thinking about myself the truth? Is it honoring to God? Could it be a lie that I am believing? Bring these questions before the throne and ask God himself.

Living a life that is held back because of pride is no life to live at all. In order to do what God has set us here to do we must ignore the self-doubt and lies about never being good enough. It just isn’t true. Jesus didn’t die on a cross for us to live not good enough lives. Apart from Him we are nothing, but with Him we are perfected and whole!

On days I am struggling to see my worth through God’s eyes I take heart in this passage from Ephesians: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:1-10

He has prepared – in advance – good works to be done. He wants to use us for the Kingdom and that means we are fit to serve Him because He created us for this very thing. We were created to glorify God, so don’t let your self doubt hold you back from what you are made to do!

I will walk forward knowing that I really can’t do it without Him, and that He made me whole, and yes, even good enough. He made you good enough too. So shake it off and step out in your good-enough-ness and tell this crazy broken world about the great gift of salvation because really, that is all that matters!

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:29-30