When your best isn't enough.
Spoiler: It was never meant to be. | March 2025 Newsletter
I’m not sure how old I was when I heard the lie: your best is good enough.
It was probably my mom who first told me this (sorry, mom). I imagine coming to her disappointed in the craft project that didn’t turn out quite right or the cookie that was clearly misshapen.
And at the time—those words would have made me feel better. (They would have, ironically, even been true under the circumstances.)
But #adulting isn’t quite the same, is it?
You will forget someone’s birthday.
You will forget to send the email.
You will forget to pack the toothbrush in your luggage.
You will miss the meeting. Or have to cancel the date. You will fumble your words at the wrong time. You will screw up. And it will have consequences.
Because we aren’t perfect people.
We’re just people.
Which means we’re bound to get it wrong now and then.
Sometimes we don’t even get it wrong.
Sometimes our best really just isn’t enough.
You practice, practice, practice, but still don’t place.
You write the novel, but it doesn’t get published.
You go to the best doctors, follow all the protocols, but still don’t experience healing.
So then . . . what do you do?
You turn to Jesus.
Our mistakes, slip-ups, and wrong turns were never meant to be something we navigated alone.
Instead, our insufficiency shows God’s sufficiency.
And that’s the point.
I’m learning it’s less about what went wrong and more about how I respond. It’s not about being enough—but rather—acknowledging how God is always enough.
He is enough in every circumstance. In every hard season. In every new (or old) challenge.
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
And that’s some good news, friends.
Book Progress: 25%
If that number looks familiar—it’s because it should. 😂 February was a short month that was jam-packed. Which means I didn’t make much headway on my novel.
(This is also the first time my newsletter has been this late—so yeah, writing was challenging on all fronts.)
But I get to choose whether or not to let that be a discouragement. Too often we (especially my creative friends) define ourselves by what we do instead of who we are. But here’s the truth: I’m still a writer regardless of if I write this month.
Do I love it when I get to spend long hours at cozy coffee shops working on my novel? (Yes.) But does it mean I’m not a writer if I didn’t finish a new chapter this month? (No.) What about if I sit down to write but end up with a negative word count instead? (Actually, that’s a writerly rite of passage. 😜)
So to anyone who feels behind, remember you are more than what you do. Give yourself grace, and when you’re ready, get back up and try again.
For March, my Book Club decided to pick a historical novel. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr takes place against the backdrop of World War II. (And if shows are more your vibe—you’re in luck! It’s now a Netflix limited series.)
Here’s what the book’s about:
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
I have so many projects that feel halfway complete. (Which come to think of it—feels like such an accurate metaphor for life.)
There are a lot of things in-progress (just like us).
A bathroom peel-and-stick floor I’m trying to finish.
A mattress that needs appropriate size bedding.
A paint touchup I’ve been dragging my feet on.
A spare room my roomies and I should declutter.
So many small things . . . small things that can start to feel like big things when you add them up.
Nothing teaches you the value of finishing over starting like home ownership. 😅
So here’s to navigating the messy middle of life (and sometimes messy homes), my friends.
And a gentle reminder that maybe what someone else needs most right now isn’t your best—maybe they need to see your mess. Because it’s in the mess that we find healing. That we see we don’t have to have it all figured out. Where someone else learns that there’s space for their messy, imperfect parts too.
Much love,
Rachel
Great post. I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses! 🙂