This is for girls of all walks of life: the wife who doubts she’s worthy of love, the girl bullied by her peers, the woman who wonders if she will ever find the one, the mom who feels like she’s failing daily, the woman who just retired and feels like she’s losing her sense of purpose. Girl, you are enough.

From the earliest of our time here on earth, we start to learn how this world works. We get messages bombarded at us that we don’t even consciously know we are receiving. These messages come with us for the rest of our life and shape how we view the world, others, and ourselves. 

God designed us to have core needs, things every single one of us needs and cannot live without. If these do not get filled, we will seek out ways to fill them.

And the world offers a million counterfeit ways to make us think we are filling them, but in reality, they destroy us. 

To be loved. If we intentionally or unintentionally get the message we are unlovable or not worth loving early on, this shapes how we view ourselves, how we treat ourselves, how we are in relationships, and so much more. We will seek love in any form, and happily take unhealthy versions of it in order to mask the pain of deep down feeling unloveable. We need secure attachment as we learn about the world, but if we don’t get that, we develop an unhealthy understanding of attachment. 

The truth is . . . girl, you are loved. You were designed and created with a loving touch and adored by the creator of the universe. This love is unconditional and there is nothing you can do to lose it. This is a hard concept for us to understand because we live in a world of cause and effect, and we go up and down with feelings.

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To be valued. Our sense of worth, our view of ourselves. If we learn early on we have no value, we will go on living like we are replaceable. We will start to believe it makes no difference if we are here or not. 

The truth is . . . . girl, you are chosen.

You are precious, a priceless rare gem. You were bought at a high price, and you are a treasure to the King of the world. People on this earth might not be able to show you this—it is because of their own hurts, wounds, and learned survival. They operate out of their baggage, even if they look like they have it together. If they can go on making you feel invaluable, they are being crushed by something you cannot see.  

To be accepted. Just as we are, without adding things or becoming someone else, to be accepted for exactly who we are. This makes or breaks our identity. 

When this isn’t done, when we receive the message that who we are isn’t good enough for acceptance, we become misunderstood and rejected. And that message will take over our hearts and minds putting a filter over our eyes that will skew everything that comes our way.

So we will go through life trying to find our way, searching for a sense of belonging, and finding worth in ourselves in external ways. We long so much to be accepted, we will change who we are in order to get it. We will search high and low in places we don’t even like just to find it. We can’t help it, we were created to need this.

Other people’s approval of us will become our inner voice and determine our opinion of ourselves.

Our need to be seen and heard will slowly diminish over years of being unrecognized and misunderstood. We will slowly lose our voice and power until one day, other’s voices are all we hear and live by. 

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The truth is . . . girl, you are accepted. You can come as you are, exactly as you are without changing one single thing. You can come in your hurt, your pain, and your anger. You don’t have to change what you like for Him or become someone different for His approval. He created you exactly as you are, and He is proud. Did you hear that? Proud. Irreplaceable. Worthy. 

This is the most important thing I need you to hear. No matter what you do, no matter how many bad choices you make, how many times you mess up, how much you even try, this cannot and will not change.

You see, King Jesus doesn’t operate the way our brains operate. He doesn’t see our mistakes and waver in these things. They are concrete. They are unmovable. They are everlasting and not one single thing you can do can change that. Let this sink deep into your heart.

You are loved. You are valued. You are accepted. You are safe. And no matter what you do, that doesn’t change. 

We all have earthly parents or caregivers, and when we are young, they are the ones who teach us how this world works and imprint messages into our minds. They will mess up no matter how hard they try, they will do or say something (intentionally or unintentionally) that will make us feel unloved, unvalued, or unaccepted. They are bringing us up in their own brokenness and messages that shaped them, we cannot expect them to not mess this up. They are just mere humans, and the reality is they can’t be perfect. 

That is why we need to find unconditional love, our value, and our worth, and our acceptance in the One who will never let us down and who will not be swayed by this fallen world. Our perfect parent. The One who will never leave us, will never lie to us, will never make us doubt if these things are true. 

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Girl, you are enough. You fully meet the demands, You live up to the expectation. You are sufficient, satisfying, and qualified. You are adequate, competent, and special.  You cannot add one more thing to yourself that would be better in God’s eyes. 

As girls, women, moms, friends, sisters, employees, we face the message that we aren’t enough all day, every day, from everywhere. The media, our own people, social media, society itself . . . and worst of all, from ourselves. They lie to us telling us we will never be thin enough, happy enough, pretty enough, have enough money, have enough things. They cause us to compare to others, and we allow that to take us down. We will meet so many people in this world along our journey who will blatantly tell us we aren’t enough.

This world can be a cruel place. It can lie too easily to us, making us feel like we need to add things to be accepted.

If I could go back to my younger years and change one thing, it would be that I undeniably knew I was enough. That single concept would have changed the trajectory of my life—how I entered relationships, how I perceived the world.

I spent so much time looking for validation and approval when I already had it from the one who matters most. And the thing is I was so broken down by these messages, I didn’t want it from him . . . I wanted it from the ones in front of me.

I changed who I was to the point I didn’t even know the truth anymore and completely lost my identity. I changed who I was with the wind to connect to whoever I was with, terrified they would discover the truth—that I had no basis anymore. I was a lost little girl trying to find anything to take me in. I didn’t care if it served me or hurt me, all I cared is that I felt like I belonged. 

I want the next generation to know they are enough exactly how they are. I want the generation ahead of me to know they can stop running the race, they already made it. I want every single girl to believe the message in the deepest parts of their soul: Girl, you are enough.