‘I am Enough’
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40, NKJV).
This Scripture shows us that we are commanded to love God, love others and love ourselves. Jesus’ command to "love your neighbor as yourself" implies that loving oneself is a foundation for loving others. The phrase assumes a natural, healthy self-love—not vanity or selfishness, but a recognition of your own worth as a person created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). To love others well, you must first value yourself enough to care for your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. This aligns with biblical teachings like caring for your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). However, the focus remains outward—loving others with the same care and respect you naturally extend to yourself. It’s a balance: neither self-obsession nor self-neglect, but a grounded self-worth that enables genuine love for others.
Ever since I was a child, I have suffered rejection. My school years I was severely bullied and called ugly on multiple occasions. My brother was good at all things physical, and I was not. My Dad and my brother would laugh at me, further entrenching my self-belief of ‘not good enough’.
I remember at the age of around 7, I came home from school and looked at myself in the mirror and uttered these words ‘I hate you’ and in tears told my parents I hated them too for making me ugly.
What followed from there was the bondage of perfectionism. In my mind everything had to be perfect, or I would be rejected. My home, my cooking, my baking, my hair, my makeup – everything – even my children had to be immaculately presented so I could feel good enough. This bondage of perfectionism is a heavy burden to bear.
In my early walk God told me that He was going to teach me the difference between grace and works. He is a great teacher and over many months He taught me that Christ’s righteousness reconciled me back to God, not my own works. He showed me that I would spend my time trying to please Him so that He in return would be pleased with me! This then became about ‘me’ and not about ‘Him’. My focus was all wrong. My whole motivation and beliefs were based on a mind-set which ‘wants to gain approval and be accepted'. He taught me that we should do things to please God simply because we love Him and want to bless Him, not for what we can get from Him, even if affirmation was the motivating factor because we are already affirmed through Christ covering us. Our own fleshly righteousness according to the scriptures is as filthy as rags. We must see that only through the putting on of the righteousness of Christ that we become worthy. There is a fine line between humility and unworthiness. God wants us to be humble but not worthless! The Bible focuses on worthiness in terms of righteousness and standing before God, not inherent human value. Humans are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) and loved by Him (John 3:16), giving us intrinsic worth. However, when it comes to salvation and justification, this worthiness is entirely dependent on Christ’s righteousness, as our sin disqualifies us apart from Him (Romans 6:23). This does not mean humans are "unworthy" in a demeaning sense but that our acceptance by God is through Christ alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
I understood this and I was able to come before God and really understand that He loved me simply because I was His daughter and that my worthiness was from Christ and nothing I did or couldn’t do made Him love me more or less. I no longer felt unworthy before God and stopped doing things to gain approval from Him. The problem was this revelation did not help when it came to feeling unworthy, judged and not good enough before people. I would declare that I am worthy whenever I felt like I wasn’t good enough before people but my heart did not believe this. There were so many things I really hated about myself. I knew I was worthy before God but I still strived to be perfect before man.
How does one overcome this if confession does not produce a heart change? I would confess I was worthy, but judgement from man would come in all directions. My heart said I needed to be better, and that ‘I was not enough’ and I believed my heart more than the confession.
On 25/5/2025 there was a lady speaking in my local church. She spoke about the voices in your head telling you that you are not good enough and that comparison (where you are always comparing yourself negatively to others) needed to be broken. I listened intently and when she invited people up for prayer, I knew I needed her to pray for me. I started to cry the moment I shared with her that I suffered from not being good enough and that I hid behind my mask of makeup and felt ugly underneath. She looked at me and said that God had shown her a vision. She said that God had given me a beautiful dress full of sequins and when I walked these sequins would fall off and people would find them and be healed from them. She said to me that God told her I was beautiful because His light was in me and that people would see His Light and His beauty. But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7, NKJV). At this point I wept and wept from the most innermost depths of my soul. Another two ladies joined in praying for me. One of the ladies felt pain in her core and asked me if I had pain there. I was always suffering pain in my core and at times I struggled to breathe because it was always so tight. She prayed for healing into this area. The other lady felt pain in my head and prayed for this. I believe the pain in my sternum was a weapon (my daughter had seen a sword and felt the exact same pain and prayed for me a week earlier) which God later revealed to me was ‘self-destruction’. An afflicting spirit of self destruction can come in we speak negative words over ourselves
Afterward as I was driving home with Mark, I saw the words BEAUTIFUL in capital letters engraved in my heart. God had written these words in my soul. As I arrived home the Lord spoke to me and said ‘You understand worthiness before Me but not before man. Believing what man says over you and what you believe about yourself has become an idol because you put it ahead of what I say about you’. I understood in that moment that not believing what God says is unbelief and can block you from receiving healing. In other words I was calling God a liar. God says I am beautiful, and I am worthy. The world says you have to be perfect to be worthy or beautiful and that is actually an unattainable feat. I had partnered in my heart with the worlds view. Even though I had confessed so many times that I am worthy, my heart did not believe it. The moment I repented of my own view and the worlds’ view being an idol something inside of me shifted and the words that God engraved in my heart became louder. The realisation in that moment that I didn’t love myself and had never loved myself hit me. If I didn’t love myself, how could I truly love God and others. Loving yourself and being comfortable in your own skin regardless of the imperfections and not being perfect is paramount to your foundation in God. Loving God, loving others and your self is all intertwined and each needs to be balanced by one another.
I then took myself to the bathroom mirror and stared back at my reflection. I said to my reflection, “I love you’. I smiled and felt something shift and change. I needed to let Gods voice overpower and overshadow the voice of the world and the voice of the lies that were in my heart. I looked at Mark and said, ‘I love me’. He chuckled and said, ‘that’s good’. I don’t think I have ever said that over myself and meant it before. This time I meant it. I do not have to be perfect; I do not have to please man to be accepted because I am already accepted by my beloved Father through Jesus. If He says I am beautiful and I am loved and I am worthy then I am. No ifs, no buts. His Rhema word over me changed how I saw myself. Sometimes declaring what the word says doesn’t shift the lie until God gives you a Rhema word to break the stronghold. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4, NKJV).
I am going to continue to speak over myself that I love me (daily). When I do something, I will tell myself that I do not need to do this to be accepted or affirmed by man. There were many times that my motivation to bless another was to gain acceptance or approval from them. I will now do this for the right reasons – to bless others and in obedience to God. Not to gain something but to bless another. So many of us do things for affirmation and approval. This innate need in us to be perfect, loved and accepted can cause us to not put God first in our lives. It can become an idol because we put it ahead of God. Give it to God. Allow His love and what He says over us be the loudest voice. No longer allow the voice of condemnation and the feeling of unworthiness or not good enough steal your peace and joy.
(Prayer) – “Father God in Jesus name I am sorry for all self-destructive words I have spoken over myself. I repent for believing what the world says more than what You say. I am sorry my heart did not align with Your truth. Father God, please engrave upon my heart the word ‘BEAUTIFUL’ and let Your light shine from me. Let people see You and Your beauty emanate from within me. Take away the worry of what I look like externally to others and instead let me and them be aware of Your inward beauty shining from me. You say ‘I am beautiful’, You say ‘I am loved’, You say ‘I am worthy’. Let Your words and what You say be louder than the voices of the world, myself and the enemy. Let me no longer be ashamed of my imperfections. I decree and declare today that ‘I love me’. I love myself, I accept myself and I no longer need to be perfect to be accepted or approved. You accepted me and approved me in my imperfections because of Jesus and His work on the Cross. If you say I am worthy, then Lord I am worthy. Let me be rooted and grounded in Your love and let Your love in me love You, love myself and love others. Help me to remember to bless others in obedience to You, and because I want to bless them, not because I need acceptance, affirmation or approval from them. Thank You Jesus, Amen.”
- Tania Francis