So if you know anything about me, I struggle daily with self-worth. I struggle with everything from thinking I am not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, funny enough, to fear that I am a failure at every single thing I do. I would love to say that I succeed in beating the tiny voice in the back of my mind telling me these things, but I don't handle it as gracefully as I would like to.

I grew up in your stereotypical Christian household. I was told from day one, I can do anything with Christ. And I believe it whole heartily. But it isn't always easy to see. I let satan feed things into my brain about my worth and let him influence me to feel worthless and not good enough. But through Christ, and the community he has given me, I am beginning to regain self-worth through the support of friends and their constant reminder that God is with me.

In the future, my goal is to be a teacher. I want to start off as a youth or college pastor and then eventually transition to working on a military base or at a US embassy as a teacher for the kids of military or government officials. I am currently in my second semester of college. And I feel incredibly behind. I look at my friends who are in my boat and way ahead of me and that discourages me a lot. I think to myself, you should have taken that AP class or you should have taken the AP for the said class that you did take but thought you weren't smart enough to pass the test. I struggle with classwork because I have ADHD and I don't take meds for it and now that classes have gone online, I am terrified I won't be able to do it. Thinking I can't do it has been a constant theme of my freshman year.

So flashback to winter break and I am checking my MySFA account. I glance at my schedule and see my MTH 128 or second semester of Intro to Teaching Elementary Education Class was removed from my class list. I freaked out trying to figure out why. So I emailed my advisor questioning it all. Turns out I couldn't move on to 128 because I got a D in MTH 127 which is the pre-req. I was embarrassed, ashamed, felt so incredibly dumb, and felt like this class was the entire reason why I won't make it as a teacher and why I don't deserve to teach. And so I called my Big, Jenna. And I cried to her. And I told her why. couldn't do it. And told her why I will be an awful teacher, And explained how this one grade and this one class, is why I just need to drop out and throw in the towel. I was ready. The email to my advisor asking how I fully drop out was written and ready for sending.

She told me to calm down and to stop being dramatic. And she told me she struggled her freshman year. And it shocked me a little. This person I held so high on this pedestal as a role model and teacher, struggled too! And Jenna, I am definitely not trying to call you out on this one but it did help me and I thank you. And after that, talking to more people, I realized that freshman year is rough and a lot of people repeated classes and I felt a slight bit better about it. I didn't like it but I felt like less of a failure and agreed to retry it.

It's March now and I am doing better but not great. I got to sit down and review my grades in my math class. And I realized that I am not where I wanted to be in that class. And it was my fault. I neglected 3 weeks' worth of work because I kept forgetting to upload it to D2L. I was mad. Mad at myself for being so careless and forgetting. So I began to work in overdrive to get everything done. And I got a good chunk of it done as of right now. But every time I uploaded something, within minutes, I got feedback and it was like a punch in the stomach every time. I would miss something or just do it wrong and it hurt. I thought I did well when turning it in. And that discouraged me. I went back into the mindset that I can't do this. I am not good enough. I am not strong enough. I am too worthless to bring any good. So I was ready to quit again. So I reached out to my community group. I asked for prayers in my time of self-doubt and lack of self-worth. They came through. So well. And I got reminded

So. Here I am. Neglecting an English assignment to get this out because I need this to be heard.

You. Are. Good. Enough. All your self-doubt and lack of self-worth is just the devil trying to bring you from the father who is telling you that you are good enough. Life is hard. It really is. But through him, you can do it all. I promise. You are going to struggle. You are going to drown. You are going to hurt. But you are stronger than all of it. If you have to retake a class, you can do it. Don't feel ashamed, It's natural. If you think you aren't cut out for your profession because you think you're a failure? Then take a step back. Breathe. You can do it with Jesus! As a friend told me "In the eyes of Jesus, we're more than good enough. In fact, we're so worth it that he died for us. Don't let the enemy tell you these lies. They are lies. If these past few months have taught me anything, the closer you run towards God, the harder Satan just wants to beat you with everything he's got."

You got this. I promise.

Philippians 4:13