Where Do You Lean When You Can Barely Stand? - by Julie Sibert

At certain points in life each one of us begs for answers to life's toughest questions. Perhaps the most complex but yet simple question beckons at the center of each human heart. It has for all of eternity. This. This question might motivate one to prove to the world they are an olympic champion, while it overwhelms another into the pit of all consuming addiction to numb a feared outcome.  When we inevitably meet ourselves,  when life slows down, and we stand, just us....we beg......

AM I ENOUGH?

Today’s post comes from author, blogger, speaker, and my dear friend Julie Sibert. She reflects on this core question and shares vulnerably about finding God in the midst of life’s uncertainties and messiness.

---

My young son’s lower lip quivered, and I could tell he was trying to not cry.

Really. Trying.

“What is there that is unique about me?” Bradley asked. His quivering lip clued me in that his question was glimpsing from a pit of despondency, rather than leaping from a position of confidence.  

It wasn’t like he was simply fishing for his mother’s gushing affirmation on something he already knew to be true.

Nope.

He genuinely wondered if there was something – anything – that set him apart.

“I mean, I can swim,” he timidly offered, lip still quivering. “But lots of people can swim. What’s special about me?”

My heart broke, as it does every time he questions his value.

It is not easy to reassure Bradley.  Lord knows I’ve tried.  Through years of watching him struggle socially and emotionally, my husband and I daily still find ourselves feeling ill-equipped to bolster his fragile sense of self.

“Is there anything special about me?” his pleading continued.

I shifted into “Brad Whisperer” mode, as I had done so many times before, and calmly spoke truth and love into him.

“God made you exactly how you are and He gives everyone unique gifts and abilities. Everyone. Including you.”

I went on to point out to Brad some of his unique attributes, like his profound and intricate knowledge about animals.  Mostly I talked about God’s deep love for him.

This did seem to reassure him, for the moment at least. And I breathed a sigh internally that I’d eased him away from the proverbial emotional cliff.

I can’t tell you how many times we have stood at that cliff.

Hung on to its edge by our fingernails.

Wondered what we’d find at the bottom of it.

And Bradley is only 11.

I wish I could say to you I’m being melodramatic about all this.  But I’m not.

I’m vulnerably letting you glance into our journey with a child whose struggle to find his footing continues to shake ours.

And maybe down on my knees is where I should spend more of my time anyway, instead of grasping to stand on false platitudes of having everything figured out.

Because. Well.  I don’t have everything figured out.

I was sharing Bradley’s “is there anything special about me” dilemma with my friend Rachel one day. We meandered into a conversation about how Brad’s question stirred something in me......the same question that has taunted me on and off for years since I was about Brad’s age.

I have regularly felt painfully average.  The running joke in my head is that when Jesus says the first shall be last and the last shall be first, I figure I’ll be right in the middle somewhere.

Average.

And while I’ve grown in knowing where my true identity is rooted, I still sometimes cringe at the sting of feeling “less than.”

Like many of you, I have wondered if I will ever be enough.

In my more rational moments, I push back and think, “Enough?  What does enough really mean anyway?”

Bradley’s struggle to feel special or valued mirrors back to me a cry I think we all have, at least occasionally, right?

And my genuine heart as a parent longs to reassure Bradley when he feels deeply insecure.  Not unlike God’s genuine heart longs to reassure me in my deep insecurities as well.

We live in a skewed world, yet even in such mess, our Savior speaks clearly.  When we lay our ear to His sacred ground, we will find Him. We will.  Steady, unrelenting, present, sovereign.

Sometimes I run to that ground. And sometimes all I can do is crawl. Broken, discouraged, doubtful.

Either way, no matter how I get there, I lean in and He is always saying, "You are enough."

 
Julie Sibert writes and speaks on intimacy in marriage.  You can follow her blog at www.IntimacyInMarriage.com.   She lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, their two boys and a wildly disobedient dog named Stella.  When Julie’s not busy as a wife, mom and writer, you can find her drinking ridiculously overpriced coffee with friends.