Trusting My Maker

For many, many years, I struggled with feeling like a failure in the eyes of God and others. I didn’t feel “enough” for anyone. 

In my 30s, the Lord met me in a way that I came to believe He truly loved me, no matter my feelings or my failures. And while He wanted to transform my life to look more like His, He also knew me because He made me. My understanding of this increased in my 40s, then 50s. But as I approach 60, suddenly the feeling of being “less than” reared its head again—and in a place I didn’t expect. 

I adore our Community Group. I have felt loved and appreciated among this group of fellow believers. But a couple of weeks ago, as I listened to the other women in our group, women with strong opinions and strong personalities—all of whom love Jesus and are deep in His word—I found myself wondering what in the world I was doing there, for I had nothing to offer. 

I am quiet. I prefer fiction to theology, although I love the Word of God, and my Bible is one of my favorite things to read. I have a very small writing life, not a career by any stretch of the imagination. I prefer to be at the edges of any group, not in the middle of it all. I’m very much an introvert.

Suddenly, I was wondering if I’d failed God and everyone else after all. If I wasn’t what I ought to be. If I were “less than” everyone else.

Twenty-four hours later, I received a text from a friend in that group, thanking me for the private words I had spoken to her, simply sharing my experience and my family’s. The day after that, another text, this one from someone outside of our group, asking me to join a team of prayer warriors for a certain situation.

A few days later, I was reminded that a new friend valued my reading and writing experience to encourage her daughter in her love of both. And I realized that when I was asked to be a small group leader at Bible study at church, it wasn’t a “you be the de facto leader of discussion” role, it was a “you shepherd this small group” role, and that I’d been specifically chosen for it.

Four extremely kind gifts from the Lord to remind me that not only does He love me just the way I am, but He created me this way. That my personality and experiences are not inferior to anyone else’s but are a necessary part of the body of Christ. 

God gave me my strengths (and weaknesses) and my giftings–and I can trust my Maker that those are good. I realize now that closer I get to Him, the more my personality has solidified, not changed. Maturity in Christ does not mean becoming like other people; it means I become more like Christ. And it means I become more wholly who God made me to be.

I guess I’m telling you all of this for two reasons: to glorify God, who, in His mercy, met me in the sudden surge of this struggle again, and to encourage anyone out there who needs reminded of this truth—that we all need to look to Jesus alone as the one who shapes how our faith is lived out within the body of Christ and the world.