Good enough? Good at all?

To an old friend: 

I am so glad that you've been reading my blog.  I am honored that you not only read my words but think about them and respond to them!  I cannot tell you what a gift this is for me! 

You write, "...we're deceived into believing in our own progress--believing that with one more small achievement, God will love us more.  Grace is found when we take a breath and are courageous enough to say right now, I am enough." 

Your words remind me of one of my favorite quotes by Leo Rock, SJ:
"What an inestimable grace it is to recognize and appreciate all that is good enough in ourselves and in our lives!  Good enough for our love, loyalty, dedication, and humble gratitude.  Good enough insists there is something between perfection and mediocrity." 

For so many people, grace really is about being able to say, "I am good enough."  For me personally, it's about being able to say "I am good."  Good at all.  Because I haven't always believed this. 

I mentioned in my last blog that I didn't really have a genuine, adult "conversion" experience until I was already 28 years old.  I guess that's still pretty young in the grand scheme of things.  At the time, I was working at a small Catholic liberal arts college.  I had started the job in a particularly painful period--I had just ended an engagement to be married.  I had cared about my fiance very much but had found that marrying him would be disastrous for both of us.  (In my "Marriage and Family" class in college, my professor had said that a broken engagement isn't a "failure"--that engagement is a time to discover whether a life commitment is the right choice--but these words weren't any consolation to me).  Even though I knew that my decision was the right one, I felt pretty miserable....guilty....friendless.  I was in such a bad space that I started to see my entire life as just a long series of screw ups, and I concluded about myself that I was a pretty big asshole.     

The President of the college obtained a very generous grant that was to be used for the spiritual formation/development of the faculty and staff.  I took advantage of the grant and signed up for a seven-day, silent retreat.  [For those who are unfamiliar with Ignatian retreats--one spends the week in silence and prayer (no phone, no tv, no newspaper, etc.), with the exception of an hour-long meeting with a spiritual director.  The director listens to the retreatant's account of what is "going on" inside of them in their silence and prayer and offers guidance and suggestions for further prayer.] 

I arrived on the first day of my retreat with the hope and expectation of "turning myself around," and  I even had a list of all that I wanted to accomplish!  I wanted to leave the retreat as a more holy, loving, reverent, honest, disciplined (etc., etc., etc.) person.  I have to laugh when I think back on that week.  Each day, I'd visit my spiritual director and would begin my session with, "I think I really need to work on this...."  She would kindly say, "Oh, that's interesting."  Then she'd ask me simply to describe some of the thoughts and feelings I was having in the course of the day.  She wouldn't say much in response but would instruct me to spend some time reflecting on Psalm 139.   I figured out that something was going on when she instructed me to reflect on this same Psalm (and only this) for four days in a row! 

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...

The grace I needed most at that time, and the grace I experienced that week, was the ability to look at myself, my whole self (in all its messiness--and believe me, there is a lot of messiness) and say, "I am good." 

Even as this was a turning point (conversion - turn around) in my life, I still struggle with it.  A lot.  In fact, there are days when I feel overwhelmed by memories of things I've done wrong or inadequately or insensitively:  "God, I wish I hadn't been so stupid in college...."  "Why did I treat [insert name here] so poorly?"  "Why couldn't I have just been honest about how I was feeling?"  And that insidious voice starts to creep in:  "Rebecca, you're just an asshole."  But then I consciously bring to mind the words of the Psalm and dwell on them for a while....

Friend, thanks for your response.  I am so happy we are in conversation again!