In this past season, I’ve been doing a lot of connecting the dots in my life, sifting the lies from the truth. I’ve been reflecting on the narrative that drives my life forward. What story am I telling? What story do I want to tell?
And I see how these lies have crept into the narrative of my life, how they have influenced the plot line of my story. I’ve developed a narrative surrounding how I live my life, my life’s purpose. These lies are so subtle that I didn’t even think I believed them. My words speak one thing and my actions speak another. The enemy whispers these lies to me, and he is strategic, whispering the same lie over and over again until even the tiniest part of me believes it: “if you want to be loved, you need to be perfect”, “you’ll never be enough”.
I consider myself hard-working, but why? So I can put the most love and care into everything I do? Or so I can feel like I’m enough, like I’ve earned the love I so desperately long for. It’s often the latter. It’s my pride, and it’s a belief in conditional love. These are the lines that connect all the dots. These two things, they lead me to believe I need to be perfect, so I can be enough, so I can be loved. So I start believing that if I do enough I can be enough; I can be loved. So I say yes to all the things, things that I don’t even believe God is calling me to do. I just want to feel needed, valued, loved. I become so busy doing things that aren’t even giving me life that I don't stop to question why I'm doing these things.
The most beautiful thing about a story narrative though, is that it can be changed. Yesterday in the car, Jesus spoke to me a truth that is helping me stop allowing these lies to drive the narrative of my life. He said: “you will never be satisfied. You could join that leadership team, you could go to mass every day, you could go on mission, you could pray a hundred rosaries, and still it would not make you feel like you are enough. It would not satisfy your desire to be loved. You will only be satisfied when you recognize that all you need to do is be My beloved daughter. I delight in you already. You do not need to earn my love by becoming more perfect, because you already have my love.”
Here’s the truth: God delights in me now. I am loved now.
For most of my life I’ve been “doing”. I’ve been serving or working or looking for something else to do that will be better than the last thing. And while all the things I’ve done are good in and of themselves, I think I’ve placed too much of my Christian identity in them. I am not a Christian because I serve in my community. I am a Christian because I love Jesus and I am a child of God.
So in this season, I’m taking more time to be God’s beloved daughter, to be a friend, to be a sister, to be a daughter to my parents, to just be. I’m taking a break from serving in a structured ministry, so I can take more time to rest and take time for the things that really matter. God calls me to love where I am. For so long the narrative has been DO ALL THE THINGS, but that narrative is no longer serving me, so I’m changing the narrative: God is calling me to rest in Him, to focus more on the ordinary day-to-day moments.
About six months ago, a friend asked me how I was doing, and I said I was okay. His response caught me off guard: “I wish one day you would say you’re good and mean it.” My life looks very different than it did six months ago. I miss it sometimes, the life I was living then. But I see now that I am exactly where I need to be, living a slower life, loving in different ways. And I am grateful to say now that I am good, and I mean it.