Good Enough

     President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". In reality, we have all kinds of fears -- public speaking, heights, spiders, death, loneliness, and so on. One fear seems to stand above all the other fears. This fear is one that just about everyone has and one that just about everyone has been impacted by: fear of rejection. 

     There's just something about rejection that cuts deep. You would think being told "no" (or a form of that) wouldn't hurt so much, yet it does. There's all different kinds of rejection, whether that's getting turned down for a job, not getting in to one's dream school, being told "no" by one's crush, getting cut from a sports team, or anything else in between. No matter what type of rejection it is, that same feeling of sadness and disappointment persists. A lot of times, the act of being told "no" hurts less than what that "no" itself implies: that one wasn't good enough. And that hurts. The vulnerability that comes with being rejected and feeling like one just wasn't good enough is tough. For some, that feeling of rejection never goes away. Or even years later, that painful reminder of rejection can still hurt. 

     When I was in middle school, I tried out for sports. Even when I knew I wasn't going to make the team, it still was tough to hear the football coach say "You didn't make it" or to get a slip of paper saying you didn't make the track team. In those instances, it can be especially painful when your friends do make it. You're happy for them, but still hurt that they were deemed "good enough" and you weren't. It doesn't help that middle school is an impressionable time, either. Around those same years, I can also remember applying to specialty schools, ones that both my siblings had gotten in to and attended. I didn't get in to them. While my family and friends were great and never made me feel like a failure, it still was tough for me. Being rejected always does hurt. 

      One thing I've come to realize is this: just about everyone has stories like those -- of times when there were rejected by someone or for something. Heck, Dr. Seuss' first book was rejected by 27 publishers! Whenever we do get rejected, it is easy to fall in that trap of believing that we're not good enough. After all, why else would we have been rejected? And yet, that couldn't be further from the truth. We are good enough. We are always were. Sure, we may not have been good enough to make the football team or to get in to some school, but that doesn't mean that we ourselves aren't good enough. In Christ, we are good enough. not because of what we've done, but because of what He's done. 

     In some ways, rejection has a way of working out for us. I honestly believe I'm better off today because I didn't get in to those specialty schools. In the moment, that pain of rejection does hurt. However, that pain hurts a little less when enough time has passed for us to put it all in perspective. 

     In the 1930s film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy encounters a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. The scarecrow longs for a brain, the tin man longs for a heart, and the cowardly lion longs for courage. Near the end of the film, Dorothy and her friends meet the "wizard," who gives each of them a gift to symbolize what they want. However, it is here that they realize that they each always had what they wanted. We can be the same way. When we get rejected or feel as they were not good enough, we seek out our own "wizards" for answers or something that will give us that extra boost that will make us good enough.  However, it is through God, not some "wizard" that we realize we always were good enough: And we don't need a trophy or diploma to prove it.