I feel it deep in my soul – rejection.

I hate rejection.

In Junior High, I tried out for cheerleader and I didn’t make it. I had been one the year before, but not this time. I called my Mama. She came to get me from school and I went home and cried in my bed. Now, looking back, that was really stupid. But at the time my heart truly hurt and to a preteen girl with hormones, not making the cheer squad was heartbreaking.

Then in high school, he dumped me. For eight months I wallowed in self pity. What was wrong with me? Why did he break up with me? What did the other girls he liked have that I didn’t?

After highschool came college, where I ventured off to be a doctor. But it would seem that was not God’s plan for my life, as my own brain rejected me and said, “NOPE.” My chemistry grades were just not doctor material.

So I switched to teaching.

I began to teach and things started rolling, then I went to Africa and came back battling mental and physical illness. I had lost my mind, for lack of a better phrase.

Lastly, and most recently, my broken marriage put the nail in the coffin.

And throughout all of this came satan’s lies. One of which is his most effective:

“You aren’t good enough…”

It’s that crippling feeling we get when our job, or our book proposal, or our relationship is in shambles.

“You aren’t good enough…”

It’s that little voice behind us when that man doesn’t respond, that friend group leaves us out of that party, that supervisor hires someone else…

“You aren’t good enough…”

You know the one thing I love about being a Christian?

I don’t have to be “good enough.”

In fact, Jesus knew I wouldn’t be, so He died for me.

And all those things that I thought were disappointments- I see now that God has better things in mind for me. At the time all I could see was my pain, my struggle, the rejection. But now I see God’s hand in a bigger picture that I could not have imagined.

So, when satan says,

“You aren’t good enough…”

I respond,

Because God stretched out his hands and said,

“Lisa, your sin is enough that I would lay down my life for you so that I make you good enough.”

You are loved.
You are valuable.
You are useful.