More than Enough

This is a note I wrote on Facebook back in 2009.  I was looking for it, because I was kind of feeling the rotten feelings pop up again and I needed to re-read this truth.  

I knew it with the certainty of a child. Not that one is no longer certain of things as an adult, but that certainty is less…well, certain.

I knew it was my fault my dad left, and this new man, who also wanted to be called “dad”, came into our lives…and it was also my fault that the new man and my mother fought constantly.

I have always – or at least as long as I can remember – been stubborn and smart – and everyone told me I was. I wonder if I felt a certain amount of power. Anyway…I remember nothing of Karl (my biological dad) from my childhood. Small wonder. As a Navy dad, he wasn’t around a lot.

I do remember, however, him coming to see us after the divorce. Or rather, I don’t remember him, but how I cried and begged him not to leave me again. I think we were living in South Carolina at the time. After that, my mom asked him not to return – it caused too much turmoil in our lives.

But, just the same, I was certain it was all my fault. Why he never visited, why my mom & new dad fought – it always seemed to be about me. The fighting actually was. I remember being woken up from a sound sleep to “participate” in the fight about something (again) that I had done.

I finally came to believe that it was not only my personality – no – it was my very PERSON that offended him (my step-dad) – even the way I looked. I am, and always have been, the spitting image of my bio father. I started to think that it didn't matter what I did – one look at me would set him off.

I was too smart, too stubborn, too bossy, too quick, too stupid, too careless, too irresponsible, too…. MUCH. 

And that’s how I defined myself – for a very long time.

I finally realized my need for something else to define my life in my senior year in high school. So much was expected of me. I would be at least in the top ten – but how disappointing to know I would not – could not – be valedictorian (really – next to Maciek? No one could!). I needed to be well-rounded for college applications – yet my activities’ schedules interfered with our “so-called’ family times – usually everyone cleaning a different area of the house.

I was an A-student, a drum major, ran track, had a job, in the school musical, on Steering Committee for Model Assembly, took ballet, played flute (band, All-State, and flute quartet), babysat, chorus. I was drinking Maalox and my joints were swollen for no reason. The one person from whom I needed to hear “good job” could no more have said it than I could have grown wings.

I hated myself and knew everyone else did too. So, I considered suicide. Wrote it in my journal how I would do it. My ex-boyfriend, Jody, saved my life. He turned me into my guidance counselor. I remember her saying a few months before this, “you look like you’re all together, but it’s being held by a band-aid, isn’t it?”

Long story short…I learned who my friends were. Jody, Marc, Prune, Bunny, Deed. Those were my real friends. 

I was required to attend counseling with the whole family. Stupid, pointless…I walked out. And the whole family followed – was I that powerful at 16?

My parents acquiesced and said I didn’t have to attend college right away – what a relief! Since I was 10, all I had heard was, “you’re going to college and you’ll have to pay for it yourself”. I had such potential, you see.

I tried for a few years to find someone who would love me for ME. That didn’t work so well, but God redeemed a few of those relationships. Out of the worst of those, I came to know Christ as my Savior – as someone who just loved me.

I believed with all my heart that Christ was the only way I was going to get to heaven. I knew how I was – I wasn’t that stupid! But I also knew I had a lot of work to do while I was still here.

Fifteen years later, we moved to West Virginia. No, not in a million years would I have chosen to live here, but yet, here we were.

Through this church, I have come to realize I am not TOO everything. I am Christ’s workmanship created to do good works that he has prepared in advance for me to do. However, these good works are NOT required in order for God to love me.

I want other Christians to see what they’re missing. They don’t have to spend their Christian walk performing for God, doubting Him. He actually loves me – really. He actually WANTS to spend time with me. He doesn’t just tolerate me. He wants to be kind – IS kind to me. He sings over me. He woos me. He loves me beyond all measure. 

I can believe Him – he has chosen, blessed, forgiven, adopted and redeemed me. 

I am, once again, certain – with a child-like certainty of who I am. I am Erin, whom Christ loves.