I have lived my life on a treadmill of striving.
Always working hard to get things just right... trying to please everybody around me... thinking if I could just do more or do better, then maybe—just maybe—I'd be enough.
The tracks are stuck on repeat in my mind, telling me I'm not smart enough, not cool enough, not spiritual enough, not lovable enough, not _____ enough. Which leaves me just trying to run faster on the treadmill: exhausted, but no further along than I was before.
This year, I'm choosing to step off the treadmill, to shatter the record that's been skipping for 34 years. My One Word for 2013 is enough.
No matter what labels others stick on me—or even that I stick on myself—His banner over me is love.
I am His.
I am loved.
I am enough.
My One Words the past few years have all been verbs—Risk. Look. Choose. This year, I needed a word that reminds me—even in its form of speech—that it's not about doing more, but about being who He created me to be. And simply embracing my enoughness rather than striving to accomplish something.
I am not perfect, but I am enough.
I am not more than, not less than. But I am enough.
I won't always fit in, or feel valued, or be loved well. But still, I am enough.
I won't get everything right or accomplish as much as others do (or as much as I want to). I will mess up, falter, and fail. I will hurt and be hurt. I may be discarded, forgotten, replaced. But I am enough.
Those three simple words—I am enough—are so difficult for me to say. To accept. To believe. But I want them to sink down deep in my heart.
I am equally terrified and intrigued to see how enough will grow me this year. Here's to the journey!