Enough in Your Eyes

The Tears That Came Too Soon

🕯️ On Friday, during her presentation Talk Less, Help Learning Stick, Maria Doyle asked us to recall our worst and best teachers. She wanted us to focus not on what those teachers did, but on how they made us feel.

Before I could even recall the teachers, the tears were welling up in my eyes. Dang, not now. I'm on the job, I thought, and I quickly pushed it all back down and swallowed the tears by focusing on the task at hand. The slides needed to keep rolling.

✍️ Tonight I took some time to sit with the Lord and track the fruit to the root. Like water quietly finding its way to the lowest place, it took me all the way back to primary school.

The Measuring Stick

My brother Stefan was fourteen months older than me, and clever. He'd already started school in Germany, but when our family moved to South Africa, he did first grade again, the same year I started school. From then on, we spent most of our school years side by side in the same class.

That's where Maths became a place of fear. Stefan was a whizz at Maths.

Our Maths teacher was really mean. She always played Stefan and me off against each other, and whoever got the lowest grade would be punished. It was never enough to do my best. The question was always whether I'd done better than my brother, and when I hadn't, I paid for it.

Mistakes weren't treated as part of learning. They were met with a slap. Sometimes my hair was pulled. I learnt very quickly that getting something wrong meant getting punished.

🕯️ I remember feeling let down and heartbroken, frightened and alone. I felt worthless, embarrassed and condemned, as though every mistake proved something terrible about who I was. Nobody stepped in. Nobody helped me. Mama and Papa were barely home, and I'd decided a long time ago there would be no help for me, so what was the point of asking?🤔

📖 "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me." — Psalm 27:10 (NKJV)

So I did what I could to survive. I tried to be what was expected of me, complying and performing, hoping it would keep me safe. When it was too much, I froze. I went quiet and numb, unable to speak or say no.

Deep inside, I made my promises. I won't let myself get hurt that way again. I'll be strong. I won't need anyone. Part of me decided I wouldn't try at all, while another part vowed I'd never make mistakes, and that one day I'd prove her wrong.

Over the years, I carried that classroom with me. I carried it in busyness and in withdrawing from people, in striving to prove my worth and in putting things off rather than risk failing. I carried the belief that I was stupid, that I'd never match up, and that I'd always be a loser.

🕯️ I carried it in my giving too. It always felt easier to give than to ask, easier to pour out than to need. There is something profound in recognising that generosity can be both a beautiful expression of love and, sometimes, a way of protecting a wounded heart.

✍️ When I let my tears speak tonight, the ones I'd swallowed on Friday, they said, "I am not my brother. I can't be like him. He's older and more clever."

The Father Who Never Measured Me

🕊️ Tonight I brought that little girl to Jesus.

I chose to forgive my Maths teacher, and I blessed her. I laid down the pain of comparison, the striving to be better and the pressure to perform, and I left them at the Cross.

Then the Lord spoke over me. He didn't compare me with anyone. He didn't mark my mistakes. He simply said, "Brainy girl. Blessed and beautiful daughter. You are Mine."

He told me, "You were always good enough. I have loved you with an everlasting love."

🪨 God's love isn't evidence that we never make mistakes. His love assures us that our mistakes can't determine our worth or separate us from His care.

🌱 In exchange for my ashes, He gave me beauty. For my mourning, He gave me the oil of joy. Where I'd felt defeated, He gave me victory.

I'm not my brother, and I never needed to be. I'm my Father's daughter, held, known and deeply loved. Never measured, never compared, and always enough in His eyes.

Perhaps the most beautiful truth beneath this entire journal is this: the little girl who learnt never to ask for love is discovering that she never had to earn it in the first place. 💖