What if I'm never enough?

The plaguing guilt and doubt of motherhood.

Something has been rolling around at the back of my mind for a while now, a thought which is both desperate and freeing. Let me explain…

We’ve all been there, some way or another, that feeling of being torn apart, of having to choose between people or giving attention to one thing above another. The guilt that can come with this is immense.

The most vivid example I can you give you of this, in a raw and agonising scenario, is when my second baby came very premature and spent his first days in the Neonatal baby care unit for five and a half weeks. In an unpredictable reality that became almost normal, I had to accept the fact I was not given a place to stay on site and travelled there each day to be with my baby. Forget for a moment the real hardship that in itself brought, for I want to focus simply on the tearing - the tearing apart of a family.

I had to give up my days with my three year old to travel into hospital to see my baby. Then I gave up my evenings and sleep beside my new baby to be at home with my son, catching up on all I had missed. And somehow in the midst of it all feeling like I was never enough, I couldn’t stretch far enough or cover enough on my own. I was never present long enough in one place to truly relax, or to feel as if I had actually been a proper mother. I could not be present in two places at once, and it tore me apart.

There are more normal, everyday versions of this reality. There’s the conundrum of choosing between chasing a toddler who is about to wet themselves or washing your son’s hands covered in mud. The paranoid guessing game of ‘which child is more hurt?’ when there’s been an accident and you’re trying to attend both on your own.

But then there’s the deeper stuff, the things we don’t see as often, that just occasionally remind us of how small we are as humans. The ways we can’t fix everything, or make something better all the time. When we don’t have the answers, or we haven’t got a skill in an area that we suddenly need in motherhood. When we’re trying to be an excellent cook, meticulous cleaner, smart teacher, all whilst attempting to fit the criteria of an excellent wife… and then making it on time to activities and remembering everyone’s birthdays… something is falling short. Nobody can do it all, alongside a busy life, by themselves.

Of course, if you are blessed, you may have a husband willing to take on a little of the burden. Perhaps it’s the dishes when your hands are full with a sick toddler, or the grocery trip when you’re attempting to pack for a holiday.

Even with this help, it still leaves me feeling the weight of a truth so huge it is often hard to swallow.

I am not enough.

I will never be enough.

Do you know why?

First, because we were meant to learn how to rely on God. Second, because we were created for community, for fellowship, for working alongside others. Third, and perhaps the hardest of all, because we are sinful and we live in a fallen world.

We were never designed to be enough.

We will always fall short of a perfect standard.

It is okay to crave rest, to ask for help, to need the community we were designed to cling to!

And something that sits with me now, that I have to recall whenever these feelings of ‘I am not enough’ whisper at me cruelly, is the strong, calm voice that speaks back - ‘No, I am not. And that is a relief!’

Imagine if you had to do everything, that if you forgot one thing the world fell apart! How crazy would that be? What does that mentality of control and pressure do to someone, to their pride or their obsession to manage every detail?

It is not about me. It is not about me carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. It is not some kind of snazzy burden that I get to be smug about, like I’m stronger than anyone else because I’m trying to do it all. Why has it become so normal to almost brag about how exhausted we are, to be a martyr?

I don’t want to be that person! I want to be someone who has the clarity, the strength and the dignity rolled into one, to say that I let go of some things. That I let go and it was okay. I stopped trying to be everything when I couldn’t achieve it all. I learnt to accept that I have to choose between children at times, who gets my attention first, or that I have to decline one invitation to be at another.

I am not highly experienced in this yet, though I wish I were! But this is what I dream of reaching - this mindset and attitude that recognises my shortcomings, that sees the truth of my inability to be everything to everyone, all the time. To be the woman who is confident in the fact that she isn’t enough - not on her own, not without God, not if she is trying to be everything at once.

And friend, this is what I want for you too.

I wish for you to sit and remember the times you have felt torn, that you have battled guilt and decision fatigue, that the worry and the frustration have overwhelmed that you didn’t do it all perfectly.

And then I want you to let it go. To breathe it all out. To tell yourself, you were never designed to do every single thing, showcase every talent imaginable, on your own.

His grace is enough.

You were never meant to be enough, on your own.

Yet that is freeing!

Sit with this long enough that you do not feel the doubts so loudly, that your inner voice stops saying ‘but… but… I want to be enough!’

I know, my friend, I want that too. And yet we can’t be enough, not off our own merit. And not without those God has placed in our way, to help and encourage, to lift us up like Aaron lifted up Moses’ arms when his strength ran dry.

We will be a blessing for our children, when we accept that alone we cannot achieve everything.