Being "good enough" is a concept that keeps many people trapped in a habit of trying to prove that they can be better and do better to gain the acceptance of others, and God. Cheryl Ramurath shares her experience of being freed to accept herself in the light of God's acceptance.

All my life I have been running.

Not like a marathon runner - more like an estranged victim running scared from the shadows of my past constantly chasing me down. I have tried to hide in various dark corners to escape the constant assault of anxiety: obsessions, addictions, distractions, over activity – anything to numb the pain.
I wanted so desperately to get to God, to somehow earn the right to feel His smile over my life the way I had heard others boast about. But I never felt good enough, didn’t want to go to Him all messed up, wanted to wait until I could get myself all clean and shiny.

It took me a long, long time to accept the righteousness that Christ died to give me. I wish I could say that I was transformed in an instant, and skipped and jumped into a brand new happy life where everything kept going right and all I ever had was sunny days. Sadly, it was not so. I believed what people told me about wrapping my prayers around doing “good” works, tying it together with some money and flinging them high up into heaven on the wings of a distant hope that God would maybe take time out of His busy schedule and see whether He wanted to communicate with me.

Imagine my surprise when it finally dawned on me that God had been behind the scenes (and in the present and far off into the future already) all the time. My Dad – the very One that crafted me with His fingertips and placed every single finishing touch on my life – already loved me a million lifetimes over.

After having starved myself of love for most of my life, I am now faced with the wonderful dilemma of trying to condense the comprehension of what this love actually means into my practical-everyday-going-to-work, dealing-with-chores, facing-my-loneliness, understanding-my-purpose, unravelling-relationships, doing-the-shopping, trying-to-spend-less-on-clothes, coping-with-traffic, trying-to-find-joy-in-everything life.

And this is the picture that has been living in my imagination for the past few days: it’s as if I have a hard shell around me that I have somehow allowed to develop over the years. This protective barrier has been built to make sure that I don’t get hurt again – not by anyone – no way, no how. So in this little vortex of my cerebral cortex, control is high and trust is low.

I don’t know why God is so tirelessly patient with me, but He has been carefully tugging on the little parts of my heart that I thought He already had; from me still trying to be the saviour of my family, trying to find validation in my work, pleasing people instead of being honest about what I really want, to helping me to surrender emotional attachments.

He actually wants every little fragment of a heart that was once broken – not so that He can gather all the missing pieces and weigh it on His scale of justice to see whether I qualify for wholeness – but rather so that He can put every little piece back together and make it even better than before.

Now, instead of running circles of appeasement around Him, I find myself with my heart still racing held tightly in His arms, a persistent embrace that will not let me go, like a lover who holds his beloved after a long separation. And as He holds me, I can feel the tough shell slowly dissolving into oblivion as waves of His holy love wash over me. The part of me that feels like running into a hiding place again is being soothed gently to sleep – all fears pacified in the light of truth and grace. And the part of me that I never really acknowledged was there wants to stay and behold the beauty of my beloved, and stay forever in the indescribable joy of being in His presence.

Jesus has become more than just a name to me, not merely a distant persona that I think I already know – He is closer to me than my very skin. He looks at me with a look of love I don’t even know how to live in the gaze of. He takes the crown of thorns that resembles all the pain I have ever experienced and gives me His crown of grace and glory instead. He quietens all my ramblings and confusions and invites me to sit in His lap of strength and comfort.

I finally come to rest in His embrace, knowing that I am home again – and safe at last.

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