You are enough.

I don’t know who needs to hear this right now, but please know that you are beautifully created in the image of our Maker. And, as such, you are enough.

You are loved, and you are vital to the larger fabric of all creation. You are needed to complete the rest of us!

A curious thing happened to me while I was away working at a convention last week.

One night, a few of us who were peripheral to the conference skipped the banquet as we had nothing at stake in the big event, and instead jumped in an Uber to headed to a local steakhouse.

During the course of the meal, I revealed to the woman sitting to my left that I was indeed an ordained pastor. Well, I should say that another party at the table revealed that I was a pastor, and thus I ended up proving my bonafides to the entire table by showing everyone a photo of me in my fancy pastor duds in our beautiful church.

This sparked a larger conversation with the woman to my left who became obsessed with this piece of my professional life. She begged to see my blog, and once provided, she immersed herself at the expense of interacting with the rest of the table of six.

Eventually, as she read, she began to sob. And when she looked up, she explained that she was in the midst of a messy portion of life, and she was concerned that she wasn’t living a very faithful life. The woman was wracked with guilt over whatever presently was going on in her life. And she confessed that she was terrified that she wasn’t good enough, worthy enough or faithful enough for God to love her.

My heart instantly broke for her.

She shared that she’d traversed through multiple Christian denominations in her life, from one end of the spectrum to the other, beginning with Lutheranism as a child. But somewhere along the way, she got hooked up with some theology that has convinced her that somehow she is not worthy of God’s love, that there’s more that she needs to prove. … And you could see the weight of carrying this burden is crushing her. Clearly.

It leads me to wonder how many others have been needlessly, and worse yet intentionally, injured by bad theology. An infinite number of people, I suspect. And that is a tremendously hard conclusion for me to carry.

So today, wherever you are, however you are, whoever you are … please know that you are enough, that you are beautifully created in the image of our Maker and that you are loved.

And if you need to hear this message again … anytime … just hit me up! Amen!

Devlyn Brooks is the interim CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.