I Am Good Enough

Some days it seems as if I can parent like no other. Like I’ve got it all figured out and nothing can misguide me from my thought. But as a parent, we all know some days are better then others…

There are times when I start to doubt myself as a mother. Of the past choices that I’ve made, of the constant drive to be better then I was yesterday. Did I come down too heavy? Perhaps I was too tolerant? When you are alone with your thoughts at night, you question every parenting decision you made that day.

Guilt is a unique feeling of being sad or upset and is often combined with shame, anxiety, frustration, and humiliation. And as often I tell myself that I am a good mother, uncertainty is pulling me under likes gravity.

I consider myself to be a “helicopter mom”. Fear of the unknown… Of them failing, never needing me anymore, hovering over like a bird, just waiting for the next fall.

With no irrefutable role model growing up, I had to learn parenting through trials and tribulations. My mother was and still is narcissistic. She supplied us with the very basic needs a parent should. A bed to sleep in, food on the table, and clothes on our backs. We didn’t have bed time stories. We never experienced compassion when we were heartbroken. She was never seen in the crowd of parents at sports events.

But, she wasn’t always this way… It all seemed to change the day she learned that her two daughters were being sexually assaulted by her husband of six years. The day I witnessed my mother fall to her knees as she brought her two little girls to the local hospital and fought through tears as she tried to explain, was the same day that GUILT decided to control my life and choices for many years.

I was ashamed, I wanted to take it back. To leave it a secret. I hurt her.

The guilt of this horrifying image, haunted me for years. The more guilt I felt, the more it seemed my mothers narcissistic ways would shine. It wasn’t because she didn’t believe our story. She, herself just couldn’t live with her own liability. It’s as if unconsciously, we were shunned and avoided while she built her wall.

Self-doubt, insecurities and the fear of some how falling short of being like her. Of building my own wall of defense out of guilt and shame that nothing could tear down. But at the end of the day, I’m reminded by a simple phone call from my oldest daughter, just to chat. Or a warm embrace from my youngest son before he goes to bed- that I am worthy. And even though I fight my demons and I battle with the devil on self-love and worth, in the end the Lord hears my cry- casting all my anxieties on him, because he cares for me and he cares for you.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and I AM good enough.