An anxious brain loves the phrase “what if.” What if I fail? What if it all goes wrong? What if they hate me? What if I’m terrible at my job? What if I stay single the rest of my life? What if I’m actually a terrible person and friend? What if I’m bad at this? What if I don’t have anything to say? What if I wasn’t supportive enough? I could keep going, but I will stop there. An anxious brain has a field day with “what if’s” and it is never the good kind.

I have explored the positive side of “what if,” and I never believe the “what if I succeed” as much as the “what if I fail.” I have to admit, they are equally scary. I had a moment the other day in the car, though, where I thought “what if I’m enough?” Ok, I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking this came out of nowhere and wondering what kind of car rides I’m having and want no part in it. But driving tends to make me think, for better or worse, and a lot has been on my mind lately. So, the thought just kind of appeared. And was followed by tears.

For anyone who knows about the five love languages, I am a words of affirmations person. I like to give and receive love through words of encouragement and reassurance. As I more poignantly started working on my self-love journey a few years ago, I started having certain phrases or mantras to use when I was deep in my negative thoughts. One of those phrases was “I am enough.” Something I don’t always believe, even when I think I do. And so this has been something I’ve tried to work on and get better at believing for myself. If you’ve read my post from just the other day, you have an idea of my mental state lately. It hasn’t been great. I’ve pushed out a lot of thoughts of inadequacy and failure. Some of which led to my mental and emotional burnout this week. Exhausted in the car the other day, I’m not sure what brought it on, but I just had this moment of “what if I am enough.” What if the versions of myself that are tired, exhausted, messy, inadequate, etc, are still enough? What if none of that has anything to do with who I am and what I am worth?

The “what if it doesn’t work out” is actually a lot easier to believe than the “but what if is it does?” Because the “what if is does” means joy and happiness and success. It means I can rest. It means everything is ok. It means there isn’t anything left for me to control. And for some reason believing everything could be ok is a lot harder to accept than believing it could all go wrong. I like to be prepared. Prepared for just about anything to happen. I do it at work and I do it in my personal life. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with being prepared. But you can’t prepare for everything in life. Sometimes you just need to trust that when something goes wrong, you will be strong enough and prepared enough to handle it, no matter what.

After a few days of rest and catching up from an exhausting week, I had several moments of just pure joy. Joy experiencing the beautiful weather, of slowing down, of accomplishing the things I set out to do, of connecting with family, of also just doing nothing. Joy in believing that maybe everything will work out. What if I’m able to live the life God has given me and I am able to accept and enjoy it? What if good things are able to happen in my life? What if I’m good at my job even when I make a mistake or when I fail? What if my worth isn’t tied to anything other than Christ? What if I’m allowed to be content and just enjoy the life I have? What if I am able to afford all the things I wanted to do and more? What if there is no other shoe that is bound to drop? What if all the good things in my life aren’t earned but given? What then? Those what ifs are glorious and also challenging. Because they mean that the God that I love is bigger than I had even realized. They mean that I don’t have any control over my life even though I try so hard to hold everything so closely. They mean that despite some of what I do, maybe I could have good things happen, even when I don’t think I deserve them. And for someone who thinks she deserves very little, that is quite jarring to believe.

The “what if” game is a dangerous one to play. But maybe every once in awhile you could believe the what ifs that tell you you are enough, that you are capable of more than you realize, that you deserve good things, that you are are allowed to experience joy. Keeping your distance from joy doesn’t keep the bad things from happening. All it does is keep you from experiencing joy when it is most needed. The beauty of the gospel is that Christ sought out the broken. He sought out the people who didn’t think they deserved anything. He sought out the people who needed His love the most and He not only gave it freely, but paid the price in death in order for it to be so. That I think is what my heart has been struggling with. The fact that I don’t trust God to have goodness in His plans for my life. And yet, I think that’s all His plans have in store for me. That’s not to say that hardship won’t happen. That I won’t experience pain and grief and failure. But that despite all that could go wrong, there is even more that could go right.