Tag: Advice

I Am Not Enough

D. Michl Lowe2 Comments

I’ve concluded that there is apparently something deeply unlikeable and untrustworthy about me. There is a reality of who I am that others must see, that I do not. Maybe those who truly care about me know. Maybe they have tried to tell me. Maybe they have tried to help me understand, and I have stuffed cotton in my ears and closed my eyes to their kindness. Maybe I have been willfully blind to my own shortcomings. Maybe I still am.

For the last couple of years, I had been through over twenty job interviews and had had no luck at all until just recently. For over ten years, I have been nominated for a leadership position but have never been voted into that position. And I don’t blame the voters; I believe they are voting truly and in good faith! It is myself that I see as a failure. It is an observation of my own persona. I would say I am lazy, but really, I don’t think that is it. I value being able to live with the money I make, but I struggle to see my efforts as valuable.

So, is this a depression, then? I assume so. I have heartache and am searching for passion and purpose. I would like to be a true writer, but I have never felt as though I am good enough to truly be called by the title author or writer. Am I proud of my books and writing? Yes, of course, but in the back of my mind, I continually downplay them and question their validity.

I love my family; they give me unending joy and satisfaction, but I feel inadequate at the task of being a father and husband as well. I wonder if this inadequate feeling comes from a lack of my ability to fully support them financially, but then again, maybe it goes beyond that.

I seek purpose in God but feel a failure there as well. I wrote a book in an attempt to harden my devotion and zeal for Christ, but even in all I have done, I feel a failure. As if I should have done more or not done enough. I understand there is continual growth in Christ, and I do see that growth within myself, but then I look back on where I was before. Back then, I thought I was wise, but truly, I was very foolish and didn’t know it. So how am I to believe I am now wise, knowing in ten years I may look back and see my current foolishness for what it is?

They call it a mid-life crisis, but the crisis is a realization of a lifelong inadequacy. How do you make a life worthy? How do you understand what you can change to make it better? There are some things you are locked into, some things that cannot be changed. How do you turn listlessness into motivation and purpose? I don’t trust myself to know that my answers are right.

So what am I to do? Am I meant to meander along, continuing to live in a miasma of stale living? Should I continue to be burdened by a raw and open self-inflicted wound to my ego? Or should I accept the truth, accept the truth that I am not good enough? That I am not worthy of praise? That I am not enough? Because I will never be enough. I can’t do it.

However, when I am weak—because I am weak—He is strong. When I am not enough—and I am not—He is enough. When I am lacking, and I am lacking, He is full and true. When I am down, and I have been down, He is more than enough to raise me up. When I am through with giving effort, and at times, I feel as though I am through, He is there to carry me on.

I am not enough, and I never will be. The reality is no one is enough. No one is truly able. We are all frail and slowly dying, the conscious dead. It is only through the light of Christ we become anything else. In truth, we are only ever meant to be the marionettes of God, allowing the Master to bring us to life and give us His purpose. Am I enough? Yes, but only because I am His. Do I have meaning? Yes, but only the meaning He brings to life within me?

I am the resurrected corpse, Lazarus. I’m stinking but smelling better as the light hits my gaunt face. Undecaying from my death – being brought back into the world of the living, color returning. It is not I who now lives, but Christ who has chosen to live within the destitution of my life, giving it a robust and full justification.

He is worthy, so I am worthy.

My Father-in-Law’s Ethics

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

My father-in-law, Larry, is an interesting man. I have a significant amount of respect for him. Much like my own father, he comes from a background where he invested a lot of time, effort, and diligence into providing a stable and good life for his wife and kids. 

I hesitate to call him a self-made man, in that I assume many people assisted him throughout his life in achieving what he has, not the least of which would be his amazing wife, but still, I would say he is as close as they tend to come. 

Anyway, my mother and father-in-law are moving, and my wife and I abandoned two of our children to head up to Rochester, NY, to help them finish packing to be ready for the movers to load everything up and get their things into the new house in Columbus, OH. So for the past three days, my wife has been in the house, packing away items in boxes and wrapping them in paper to protect them. I have meanwhile been in the garage with Larry. 

At one point, we were finishing power washing some of the more oversized items in the garage when Larry announced he would go and till the garden with the rototiller. I was confused. To be fair, I am not a mechanical-minded person, and my father-in-law is a master-mechanically-minded person. So I will default to his expertise, but this didn’t make sense to me. So I told him, “Larry, why are you going to till the garden? This isn’t your house now; you aren’t going to plant in that garden”. 

In my mind, this was a waste of time. He was leaving this place, starting a new life. In many ways, it was going to be a better life. It brought him closer to many of his kids and grandkids; the new house would be better in nearly every way. So why waste time tilling a garden, he would never use? He looked at me and said, “It will look nicer for the new owner if it’s tilled.” 

And was no other explanation. I could have just taken it as is, but my mind wouldn’t let that explanation rest. Throughout my time helping Larry pack away his things to prepare for the move, we have been cleaning the garage as we go to the point of vacuuming the baseboards at the edge of the concrete floors. Now I wouldn’t leave a filthy house for someone to buy, but it’s a garage; to me, that’s a naturally dirty place expected to be a little dusty. 

But I think several ideals are in place in my father-in-law’s mind. He is a generally kind man who wants to do kind things for other people, even people he doesn’t really know; like those buying his home. The other ideal, though, I believe, goes a little deeper. He is proud of his home and the life it represents and for good reason. This home, in many ways, represents his and Carolyn’s success in raising a family and providing for them in the manner Christ has called parents to do. 

I have seen many parents who have failed at that calling. Because of drugs, alcohol, failed marriages, unresolved mental health issues, etc., they have failed in their calling to be good parents and spouses. I can’t tell you the number of kids raised by grandparents or single parents because one or both biological parents have failed to step up and do what needs to be done. In essence, to grow up. Now I realize many extenuating circumstances in many people’s lives have led them to where they are, many uncontrollable. 

However, I think I understand why my father-in-law tills the garden for the new owner of the house he is selling. He understands the value of what he is selling and wants to present it so that it shows the value it truly has. It is a memorial stone to a life well lived.

D. Michl Lowe