As a woman, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a professional, life is full and rich. There are multiple roles to fill, responsibilities to perform, and ultimately endless opportunities for joy, growth, and introspection. As I self-evaluate my efforts to magnify this compilation of roles, It is easy to compare the results of my labors to other women in my life that I aspire most to emulate.
The problem is, it is part of my nature to use a faulty measurement tool to measure my worth. I measure all of my weaknesses and shortcomings against someone else’s talents and strengths. This method will always produce the same, less-than-stellar report card and too often leaves me feeling discouraged, inadequate, and exhausted.
The feeling of never being able to “measure” up to such crushing, self-imposed expectations, gives a place for a defeatist attitude regarding my eternal potential and progression. “I will never be good enough, nothing will turn out the way I wanted, so why am I trying so hard?”
By being overly focused on the success of the results of my efforts instead of the consecration of motive behind them, I place the desired outcome, often based on the agency of others and extenuating circumstances as the predominant measurement of success.
My logical mind tells me my efforts were either successful, or they weren’t, because something or someone changed for the better as a result of them. If I can’t answer affirmatively then I conclude,” I am a failure. If only I had tried harder, I didn’t do it right.” What I fail to let surface are all the good things that have enlarged my soul and expanded my understanding as a result of putting forth the effort in the first place.
Ultimately, the only measurement I need to be concerned about is where my heart is. Everything else will work itself out if it begins and ends there. Even when the desired results of my efforts are less than the outcome hoped for, the journey always produces twists and turns that have led me down roads I would not have willingly traveled, revealed strengths I didn’t know I had, weaknesses that need to be strengthened and produced panic-stricken moments that have brought me to my knees, where I find myself questioning my ability to ever be “enough” to do anything all on my own. It is in that moment, I am reminded by a loving creator, that because of His Son, I won’t ever need to.
It’s against that measurement, that I am measured. Because I am His………. I am enough.
MEASURED, is a representation of the crushing expectations we self impose, by imagined or exaggerated levels of measurement.
The hand that is in a surrendered pose, represents the defeatism we feel when we are trapped beneath distorted measurements of expectations, represented in the oversized graph.
The crumbling plaster and gypsum backdrop is reflective of the erosion of self-worth that occurs as a by-product of desired, yet unrealized outcomes. As a result, our most raw emotions of fear and discouragement lay vulnerable and exposed.
Enjoy!