Tonight dawns early; dusk reaches down kissing the horizon hidden behind steep mountain slopes. I lie in bed, the gentle summer breeze sweeping over my soul. The Chilean summer slowly retreats, sunset colors glowing earlier through the trees. My chest rises and falls in rhythm with nature’s lullaby—deep breaths of February breeze flowing through my lungs. The creek down in the valley whispers a deep calm as I contemplate the reflection of the moon in the glass pane.

Here I unravel in the dawning of dusk. It’s been another week of stumbling around in the dark, of misty mental fog and lost hope. I am tired. I am tired of trying to be the woman everyone likes. It hits a sore spot, I cringe and crumble in the chaos of trying to please every passerby. This endless endeavor of trying to make everyone like me, striving to be a good person in everyone else’s eyes, seeking to secure everyone’s favor, attempting to please every darn soul has left me limp and lifeless.

The five-year-old cutie at church, the seventy-year-old pastor that dictates what I wear and don’t wear, relatives searching for their identity, the mom of a friend who waffles between conservatism and grace—I must be liked by all, must obtain their favor and be their own individual versions of good. But I can’t do it. I am never enough. And though I spend my entire existence trying to be everything for everyone, I can’t make everyone happy, can’t be each individual’s different version of a good person. Anxiety creeps up the nape of my neck. Perhaps I am evil, am ignorant, lost, a careless Christian, bad, and rebellious.

Does it really matter so much that I am liked? That the people whom I don’t even agree with believe I am their version of good? This ugly belief that my worth and value lie in being liked, being perfect, being good is killing me, sucking the sanity from my own soul. My heartbeat grows faint with exhaustion. I cannot live like this. Cannot live attempting to be everyone else’s version of good, cannot live trying to be the woman everyone likes.

I close my eyes and envision letting it all go—the striving, the trying, the dying. And I panic. It makes no sense—I know that the striving for control is killing me, but to let go of it all seems like suicide. I see myself standing on the edge of my ship as it grinds itself into the stones of the ocean wall, splintering pieces of my ship hurling into the waves. It all disintegrates in one moment of time and I am left alone in the billowing waves, pieces from my own ship that I built driving splinters into my flesh as I sink below the ocean foam. Water builds in my lungs, I can no longer breathe, no longer feel the rush of salty air burning my throat.

I try to make sense of the madness, make sense of the terror of death, and yet the desire for it. I cannot understand, but one thing I know: I am a woman believing myself to be less then, and desperate to adhere to a thousand and one definitions of good—but it’s never good enough.

***

Days later, morning dawns wet and brisk. Again I lie in bed, this time listening to the drizzle of rain. Summer seems to have been swept away in a moment of time and replaced with sparkling drops of water lacing tall pines. Lungs expand, fill with cold, fresh air and I wrestle again with the weight of fear, guilt, and people-pleasing.

The desire for control, the pressure of people-pleasing, the hope of making everyone like me, the desires to be everyone else’s versions of good, the attempts to manipulate the future, the exhausting endeavor to manipulate me, to change me—are these not all provoked by fear?

And what if I left behind this enormous dictionary with a thousand and one definitions of right and wrong? What if I left behind this long line of people reciting their own mantras of beauty, of worth, of value? What if I left it all behind, de-educated myself of all these detailed definitions? Because in the end, do they really matter? Are they really defining truths? Or perhaps they are simply remnants of other people fighting for perfection—a fragile facade of false protection. Perhaps they are shadows of another’s insecurities.

I know deep within that I must build my worth and value beneath the splintered boards of the cross, water my confidence with the blood from His wounds. This is the only way. The mantras and definitions recited by everyone else aren’t words I have to live by, aren’t standards I have to live up to.

Right and wrong, good and bad, really come naturally to the person whose eyes are on Christ, and Christ only. And goodness gracious, it is exhausting trying to adhere to a thousand and one definitions of right and wrong, and it’s simply not worth the work because it is never good enough.

So let it go. Let Jesus do what He does best—change broken hearts into grace and glory. Jesus Christ is the One who commands my destiny, my worth, my value. Jesus Christ is the One who covers me in His righteousness, replacing my sins with His purity. Jesus Christ is the One who determines that I am never alone—never abandoned by Him. Because in the end, it’s His goodness that really matters and my choice to claim and accept the truths He speaks over me.

Freedom sings from beneath the ashes: Love is enough to define and keep my worth, grace is enough to transform me into the glory of His goodness.