Madison J. Caplinger

Insecure. Even the word is ugly. It evokes images of a middle schooler with braces hiding under a large hoodie and hoping not to be noticed. She worries about how her peers see her, how she sounds to them, what they think of her. Her happiness rides on their feedback. If she isn’t liked, there’s no way she could like herself.

We were all that girl at some point. She grows up and realizes she can’t live and die on the opinions of her peers. She loses the braces, learns how to do her hair and makeup properly, and finds success with the intelligence she was teased for. But somewhere inside is that brace faced middle schooler, always whispering doubt in her ear and never quite satisfied with any attempt to prove her own self doubt wrong. 

But tune in to a different frequency with me for a moment. Turn off the insatiable voice of doubt, and hear the voice of truth: “You are enough. You are loved the way you are. You are exactly who I made you to be. The only thing you need to become is more like me; in doing that, you will become more yourself.” 

It’s likely we’ve heard a similar message at some point. Yet it’s easy to disregard as a feel-good message from a prosperity gospel preacher. But it is a fundamental truth of the gospel that we were each created to serve a unique purpose, and that purpose can’t be fulfilled when we spend our time dissatisfied and trying to be someone else. 

Surely it’s easy to see that I’m preaching to myself. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling like I need to be more, yet less; that I’m too much and yet not enough. Too smart. Not smart enough. Too awkward. Not pretty. Not feminine enough. Incapable. But God erases all those words and replaces them: Redeemed. Mine. Loved. Enough. 

Don’t waste precious time trying to change what God has created you to be. There’s a hole in this world that’s shaped like you, and people only you can reach. Don’t let all  your amazing be bestowed upon you in vain.