Don't Wait for Happily Never After

     “I’m a bad, bad lady, and I live happily never after,” a cute, well-behaved three-year-old girl at the school where I work informed me matter-of-factly a couple weeks ago. I burst out laughing, then quickly got a pen and sticky note to jot down this revelation. At the time she broke this news to me, she was sitting at a kid-sized snack table eating her applesauce and string cheese. Though the chairs are low to the ground, her feet didn’t even touch the floor. It still cracks me up just thinking back on the incident.
     When I was having a rough time of it last week for a myriad of reasons, I could relate to this amusing toddler’s words all too well. “I’m a bad, bad lady, and I live happily never after,” seemed to sum up precisely how I was feeling. After confronting some difficult memories that had surfaced from my past and examining my present more closely, I felt very much like a sinful woman who would never get it right. Whether it was in thoughts, words, or deeds, things I left undone and shouldn’t have or did that should have been left undone, it seemed as if I couldn’t go five years, five days, or even five minutes without thinking, saying, doing, or neglecting to do something that could make me put myself in the adult equivalent of the naughty girl chair—the negative thinking, guilt-tripping, downward spiral feeling that I’ll never be enough.
     Truth is, the problem with this line of thinking is that I’ve had it practically ingrained in my brain that there’s no such thing as being enough. There’s always more that a person can learn, grow, do, be…
     What helps me get out of the never enough cycle is that God is enough. He knows I’m not perfect—never have been, never will be. God knows that better than anyone, yet He loves me unconditionally and without limit. I can’t quite wrap my mind around that, but I’m interested in learning how to accept that love, if for no other reason, than that it will make me better able to love others as unconditionally as is humanly possible.
     Lord, please draw us closer to You in all areas of our lives. Open us up to accept Your love though we aren’t worthy of it, can’t understand it, and could never do anything to merit it. Help us to know in the depths of our being that You are enough. Amen.