You're Not Enough (and That's Ok): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love

by Allie Beth Stuckey

But here’s the thing: our sufficiency isn’t the answer to insecurity, and self-love isn’t the antidote to our feelings of self-loathing. Why? Because the self can’t be both the problem and the solution.

The first myth was that you are enough. My counter was this: you’re not enough, you’ll never be enough, and that’s okay, because God is.

While the admission that self-love won’t satisfy us may feel counterintuitive (it’s certainly countercultural), it also gives us immense relief. We get to remove this crushing burden of trying to muster up a love inside us that just doesn’t hold up under the weight of life’s demands. We get to rely on a sovereign God to be our sufficiency, our confidence, our guide, and our giver of purpose.

I feared that if I turned to God after the breakup, he would make me sit in my sadness while he healed me. I just didn’t have the patience for that. It hurt too much. I wanted quick relief, even if it was fleeting.