The Art of Never Being Good Enough
I have felt oddly incompetent this week. Obsolete. Inferior. Ashamed.
I have no idea why. I’m sure something triggered it but I have no idea what it was. Any little conversation or wayward thought could have done it.
I do my best to keep these feelings bottled up and stored away for the most part but there are times when they find their way out of their chains and run amok inside my head.
It’s that deep down I just don’t feel like I’m good enough.
For you.
For her.
For anyone.
Like most of my issues, I’m pretty sure these feelings have their root in my fundamental evanjellyfish upbringing. The idea of “original sin” and basing my entire life around the thought that I suck inside and out and have no hope if not for the love, grace, and mercy of Christ. Even now, that thought doesn’t seem all that scandalous but when it works its way into the most vulnerable and formative areas of your psyche it can be absolutely soul-crushing.
Here’s the thing: This deep-seated shame is rarely ever remedied whether you embrace it or not. We are born into a world of beautiful things and for a while we begin to believe that we are beautiful as well. Some of us are raised in an environment that fosters this beauty and individuality and are all the more better for it. Then there are those of us who were raised in churches like the ones I was raised in who are taught at an early age that there is something inherently broken inside of us. This broken part cannot be remedied in any way and not only that, this brokenness becomes the fullness of your identity. It is what defines you above all other things and it can only be covered up by the unbrokenness of Christ much like one would cover up an ugly shirt with a fashionable hoodie. The brokenness is still there but no one has to see it or really know about it. Still, we’re quite aware as we live our lives that we’re still wearing that ugly shirt and we’re also taught that we can’t ever take it off. We can wear as many fashionable hoodies as we want but we can’t ever take that ugly shirt off. So this ugly shirt becomes this thing that really defines us at our core. This ugly shirt is where our hearts begin to really reside.
So we live our lives believing that we are permanently broken and unworthy of love if it weren’t for the love, grace, and mercy of Christ.
We believe this because we are taught that it’s true.
So when this becomes the foundation that your life is built on, something is born deep down inside you that won’t ever die. Something that will haunt and seep its way into every crack and crevice of your being.
Shame.
Shame is born and it will never, ever die.
So what do we do with this shame?
If we remain in the church, we continue to feed it. We continue to allow it to define us. Many people have no problem doing just that.
However, if by some random chance you manage to escap… I mean, leave the church and look at it from the outside, you will quickly become overwhelmed by it. You’ll quickly become angry and bitter and all sorts of other negative emotions begin to take over because all you can think about is the fact that you’ve been had and that you’ve been made a fool of. Years of your one and only life spent feeling like you’re not good enough. Years of your one and only life being told that brokenness is your one and only defining characteristic. So you have this anger and you don’t know what to do with it so you do what is only natural and you aim all of it right back at the doors of the church. Not only because you are angry at the church but because you absolutely hate what it has led you to believe about yourself.
There is no easy fix. There is no do-over. You can’t go back and take back what these years took from you.
It can be maddening and the more you talk about it, the more church folks try to make you feel small. They try to make you feel like you just don’t get it. Like you’re waging war on God. Like you’re just some narcissist trying to stir up shit. Like you’re just angry and you need to get over it somehow. That shame that you carry deep down inside of you continues to feed on the words of every person who says these things to you.
I’m talking in the second-person because if I used the first-person, it might seem like I’m whining. However, whine I shall.
I’m tired of people taking my questions and concerns and giving me the same goddamn answers over and over again. ATTENTION: I don’t want any more answers. I don’t give a damn about your systematic theology or your worship music or your heaven or your hell. I don’t care about your mission trips or your Sunday School class or your small group. I don’t care about your church or your god or your bible or any of it. Stop throwing it in my face. I am not a fucking dart board. I don’t need the same tried-and-true platitudes thrown at me every time I get honest and talk about the things I’m struggling with. Hell, I rarely even write about this shit any more because every time I do, I get the same pre-packaged responses. No one appreciates it. If you can’t engage someone in an honest, authentic way, just keep scrolling or whatever. Ugh.
“Man, you’re angry. You need to figure out where that anger is coming from and deal with it.”
All I want to do is figure out how to love myself again. The way I did before the church taught me not to.
If I’m angry, that’s why.
If I’m callous, that’s why.
If I don’t talk to you anymore, that’s why.
I’m tired of shame and I have no idea how to leave it behind.