“These labels prove to be wholly inadequate.”
I’ve been labelled far too many times in my life, in fact I don’t think the world will ever stop labelling me. Although at first I don’t think I realized that most of the things I did in my life were labelled. It was all neatly sorted, placed into individual boxes and stored! The only problem with those boxes though, was that all the potential lay in the one that had never been opened, the one that I had labelled inadequate! Why inadequate? Because I chose to believe words that weren’t true, I chose to follow trends that sooner or later faded away.
In this year, I stood in front of one of those inadequate boxes and I had a choice to either leave it closed and push it further back, or to open it. I found that even though it was just the start to the year, I was being challenged. Not only to open the box, but to see the potential inside myself to actually go for that which I have been praying for, for so many years. There were many times where I’d tell myself that there was no reason to go and try to fulfil my God-given dream. Reasons that were not good enough for the plans and purpose of God.
A million reasons ran through my head as to why I couldn’t open the box, but there were two persistent reasons that I kept holding on to:
- I’ll never be good enough
I always believed that God called everyone else, but me! I believed it so much, that I eventually trusted and believed for God to come through for everyone else, except me. Until I sat one day in church and heard a voice asking me to test Him in this. The voice never went away, God wanted to prove that He is faithful, and that where I felt not good enough, that He was good enough to do as He said He would. - I’m an introvert
Silence is often misunderstood. I love people, but I’m most careful with them too. I’ve found that if I never had time to just draw back, that I would be socially drained, and possibly the worse version of myself to other people. So how was opening this box ever going to help other people if I couldn’t even converse with them on my best days?
God gave me a good reason to open the box, a reason that I couldn’t ignore and I’ve found myself standing in front of the box ever since. He never tried to shout the answer, He sent people my way that without them knowing, answered a prayer that was once prayed. He ripped the label off the box, and placed His name on it. Inadequacy wasn’t an option for Him, I had to choose to see myself through His eyes. I had to allow Him to love me and to show me something different than what I believed in. I had to be found in Him and find myself in Him.
The truth is that I’m not good enough, but He is. I need to look past my inadequacies and look at Jesus. I believe that we can allow the world to label us, or we could even label ourselves, but at the end of the day, who does God say you are? What has He called you to do and to be? There are no labels with God, just pure love.
Today I still stand in front of that box, who knows, one day I’ll open the box fully, but for now I’ve decided to open it slowly, every time I do, I catch a glimpse of His light and I find it hard to close the box again. And the only reason that I still stay standing at the box, is Jesus.