{"product_id":"nothing-to-prove-isbn-9781601429629","title":"Nothing to Prove","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER • The visionary author of \u003ci\u003eGet Out of Your Head \u003c\/i\u003echallenges Christian women to discover what it means to do life \u003ci\u003ewith\u003c\/i\u003e God rather than always striving to impress him in this perspective-shifting work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These pages are what your soul is begging for. Jennie Allen reminds us that when we drive ourselves mad chasing perfection, we miss the beautiful grace God designed us to live in.”—Ann Voskamp, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Greatest Gift\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAre you trying your best to measure up—yet still feel as if you’re losing ground?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou are not alone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany of us are weary, weighted down with the daily struggle of keeping up and the fear that no matter how hard we try, we are still not enough. In \u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove, \u003c\/i\u003eJennie invites us into a different experience, one in which our souls overflow with contentment and joy and calls us to...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e• Find freedom from self-induced pressure by admitting we’re not enough—but Jesus is. \u003cbr\u003e• Admit our greatest needs and watch them be filled by the only One who can meet them. \u003cbr\u003e• Make it our goal to know and love Jesus, then watch what He does in and through us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLeave behind a life of striving and settle into the refreshing truth of the more-than-enough life Jesus offers. When you do, you’ll experience the joyous freedom that comes to those who are determined to discover what God can do through a soul completely living for Him.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCBA \u003c\/i\u003ebestseller\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eECPA \u003c\/i\u003ebestseller\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublisher Weekly \u003c\/i\u003ebestseller\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These pages are what your soul is begging for. In \u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove\u003c\/i\u003e, Jennie Allen reminds us that when we drive ourselves mad chasing perfection, we miss the beautiful grace God designed us to live in. One of the most brilliant Bible teachers of our time, Jennie hands us all emancipation with these pages.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Ann Voskamp\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Broken Way\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“All I know is that when I’m around Jennie, she makes me hungry to know God better. Her passion to be His above all others—at any cost—stirs something in my soul. Read \u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove\u003c\/i\u003e and see if some of what she’s learning at His feet doesn’t spill over onto your yearning soul as well.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Kay Warren\u003c\/b\u003e, Bible teacher and author of \u003ci\u003eChoose Joy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove\u003c\/i\u003e takes us on a journey toward freedom from the need to measure up. With vulnerability and authenticity, Jennie Allen encourages us to wade deep into the streams of the Living Water and live secure in the knowledge that we have absolutely nothing to prove to God or to people.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Mark Batterson\u003c\/b\u003e, lead pastor of National Community Church\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Way to go, Jennie! Loved this book! It’s one thing to write well about the high concepts of faith or, alternatively, about the nitty gritty of real life. To write well about both grace and Netflix, both the sufficiency of Christ and also homework—that’s very hard to do, and Jennie does it beautifully. I’ve watched her walk this path, and I’ve learned from her along the way. I’m so glad she’s inviting us all into this important conversation.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Shauna Niequist\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003ePresent Over Perfect\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jennie Allen calls us to the best version of us—the version God intended. She calls us to rise above ‘woe is me’ and bring into focus ‘God is great!’ We love this glorious and universally resounding message. As a result of it, Jesus is being reflected and honored in new ways in and through this generation. Run, don’t walk, to read \u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Louie and Shelley Giglio\u003c\/b\u003e, cofounders of Passion Conferences and Passion City Church\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With honesty and raw passion, Jennie Allen invites us all to leave behind the proving and pretending that chokes the life out of us. There is more to life than this! Sharing the hard-won wisdom of her own journey, Jennie leads us to the foot of the Cross, where grace and mercy meet and we discover all over again that we have absolutely nothing to prove.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Jo Saxton\u003c\/b\u003e, author, speaker, and board chair of 3DMovements\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jennie Allen shares with great passion and transparency what every weary heart has been longing to embrace: Because of Jesus, we can stop striving. In Him, we are enough. And we have been all along.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Lysa TerKeurst\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best-selling author and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In a time when rest is hard to come by, when our days are filled with the constant clamor to be more, do more, and have more, most people feel exhausted and overwhelmed. Jennie Allen shares from her heart, which is rooted in the Word of God, where true, deep soul rest is found. Using her own life as well as illustrations with which we can all relate, she faithfully proclaims that rest will only be found in Christ’s finished work.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Matt Chandler\u003c\/b\u003e, lead pastor of the Village Church, Dallas, and president of Acts 29\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We live in a world that tries to steal our worth and identity on a daily basis. It shifts our hearts away from God and onto our own shortcomings. I am so grateful that my friend Jennie Allen, in \u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove\u003c\/i\u003e, gives us all a realignment with the truth of Scripture. This book will help you take your eyes off your problems and put them back on God’s promises.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Christine Caine\u003c\/b\u003e, founder of A21 and Propel Women\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jennie is one of those rare people who holds a fiery and prophetic vision with such tenderness and grace. And because of that, hers is a voice I’m always reading and learning from. In this book she gets my nose in the Scriptures and my knees on the ground, and in my opinion a book that does that is as good as it gets.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Jefferson Bethke\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eJesus \u0026gt; Religion \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.’ Jesus shouted this to a crowd of confused, weak, spiritually thirsty people, tired from trying so hard to be enough and do enough—people like me and you and Jennie Allen. This honest, wonderful book is Jennie’s humble shout that Jesus is telling the truth. It’s her story of finding freedom and refreshment. And if we listen to her, it can be our story too.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Jon Bloom\u003c\/b\u003e, cofounder of Desiring God and author of \u003ci\u003eNot by Sight \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJennie Allen \u003c\/b\u003eis the founder and visionary of IF:Gathering and Gather25, gatherings devoted to mobilizing the Church and help a generation live out what they believe. She is a passionate leader, Bible teacher, podcast host and the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eUntangle Your Emotions, Find Your People\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eGet Out of Your Head. \u003c\/i\u003eAdditional books by Jennie include \u003ci\u003eNothing to Prove, Made for This \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAnything.\u003c\/i\u003e A frequent speaker at events and conferences, Jennie regularly encourages and inspires people in their faith. Jennie holds a master of biblical studies degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Zac, have four children.\u003cb\u003eAdmitting Our Thirst\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJennie, why are you holding back?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy closest friends always ask intrusive questions. Wedged into the backseat on our road trip to Houston right before Christmas, I gave my sound-bite answers, not wanting to take up too much of the oxygen in the car and knowing that my life, in comparison to so many, is just not as hard as it sometimes feels.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey didn’t buy it. Bekah pressed in again. “I see it, Jennie. I see it on you and in you. You feel so much pressure. Where is the pressure coming from?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI looked out the car window. Tears burned in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. I couldn’t decide if I actually wanted to go there and feel it all. As much as I tried to mean it when I declared, “I’m good,” a steady, silent grief had been growing in recent months. It seemed my chest was always tight, and many nights I lay awake half afraid and half trying to trust God with things like . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e. . . the nagging insecurities I carry, wondering if any of the ways I am spending my life even matter.\u003cbr\u003e. . . the growing challenges we were facing with one of our kids and his special needs\u003cbr\u003e. . . . the grief I feel for my baby sister, who is suffering through unthinkable tragedy\u003cbr\u003e. . . . the inescapable pressures I feel as I lead a growing organization that has taken on a life of its own\u003cbr\u003e. . . . \u003cbr\u003ethe weariness that all of these pressures and more bring\u003cbr\u003e. . . . the sin that is coming out of me toward people I love because of the stress of all of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eUgh. Do I go there? What good will it accomplish?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWanting to keep my composure, I held back as we drove the few hours to Houston. I wanted to hide behind the familiar posturing that would shift everyone’s attention onto the next topic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was silent, deciding.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut they weren’t going to stop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSubject change. “Let’s stop and eat. Aren’t you all hungry?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey agreed to let me eat if I would open up and tell them how I was really doing. Held hostage by these crazy-good friends, I would have to risk being vulnerable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomehow in the posh suburbs of Houston, we found this little shack of a burger joint with a dirt floor and no central heat. We were the only ones there. We huddled around the outdoor heater and ate some of the best burgers we’d ever tasted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo the constant concern of our darling waiter, who continually brought me napkins, I fell apart and with a lot of tears gave my friends access to all of me: the constant inadequacy I feel, the fears of letting down those I lead or, even worse, my kids, the constant pressure I try to ignore but never seem to escape, the grief for my sister, the doubt that I often feel toward God even though I preach and write books about Him, the way I had snapped earlier on a poor intern at the office, the constant feeling that no matter how hard I try, I cannot be enough. All the things I didn’t want to say, didn’t even want to admit to myself, I said them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor two solid hours my friends gifted me all the oxygen. They sacrificially and without judgment handed it over and forced me to breathe it in, to lovingly receive it without fear. For the first time in a long time, I laughed hard and free. The deep, happy, make-fun-of-your-life-andyourself kind of laughter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor those two hours I let myself be a complete fool who didn’t have an iota of her junk together. I was free of the expectations, the roles I play, the pressures of real life. Nothing about my circumstances changed in that moment. But everything on the inside shifted. I didn’t realize until then that, accidentally, I’d let my life subtly turn into a performance. On that dirt floor, I forgot all of my lines, abandoned all of my roles, dropped all of the costumes . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had nothing to prove.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI drank in grace. I hadn’t known that was what I’d been so thirsty for. Grace. I didn’t know until I confessed my thirst on a dirt floor over burgers. My friends had that grace stored up from the contagious grace of Jesus that they all know well. Like a cold stream, Jesus’s grace poured out of them into my dry, weary, thirsty soul.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe you’ve known that thirst, that deep-within-your-bones craving for relief? Maybe you feel it right now? I’m convinced every one of us is fighting some pressure, some suffering, some sin, some burden— perhaps all of those at the same time. Yet what do we all say when we’re asked the question, “How are you?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe say, “Okay. Fine. Great.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have a secret for you: Nobody is okay, fine, great.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, goodness, we are all tired of trying to pretend we are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAre you tired? You are not alone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe truth I found that day on the dirt floor outside Houston is available and true every day for every one of us. \u003cb\u003eWe need a new way to live.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDo you want off the stage? Guess what? A cheeseburger and a dirtfloor shack full of grace are waiting for you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I should warn you, there is a full-on war to keep you from finding it. If heaven and God and angels and demons are all real, then a real enemy is out to claim all that is good and free and peaceful and joyful in us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we start here. We start by realizing we are not alone. We start by recognizing that, indeed, all hell will be out to get us if we decide to live free and enjoy grace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBen Rector, one of my favorite musicians, often puts words to music in a way that expresses truth. He wrote, “Sometimes the devil sounds a lot like Jesus.”1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe’ve been deceived by the lies of an enemy who knows exactly how to twist our thirst to his purposes. And we desperately need to open our eyes to his perverse tactics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIf I Were Your Enemy . . .\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf I were your enemy, this is what I would do: \u003cbr\u003eMake you believe you need permission to lead. \u003cbr\u003eMake you believe you are helpless. \u003cbr\u003eMake you believe you are insignificant. \u003cbr\u003eMake you believe that God wants your decorum and behavior.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd for years these lies have been sufficient to shut down much of the church.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut now many of you are awake. You are in the Word and on your knees. God is moving through you, and you are getting dangerous. You are starting to get free and leading other people to freedom. The old lies are no longer adequate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSo if I were your enemy, I would make you numb and distract you from God’s story\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTechnology, social media, Netflix, travel, food and wine, comfort. I would not tempt you with notably bad things, or you would get suspicious. I would distract you with everyday comforts that slowly feed you a different story and make you forget God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen you would dismiss the Spirit leading you, loving you, and comforting you. Then you would start to love comfort more than surrender and obedience and souls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf that didn’t work, \u003cb\u003eI would attack your identity. I would make you believe you had to prove yourself.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen you would focus on yourself instead of God. \u003cbr\u003eFriends would become enemies. \u003cbr\u003eTeammates would become competition. \u003cbr\u003eYou would isolate yourself and think you are not enough. \u003cbr\u003eYou would get depressed and be ungrateful for your story. \u003cbr\u003eOr, \u003cbr\u003eYou would compare and believe you are better than others. \u003cbr\u003eYou would judge people who need God. \u003cbr\u003eYou would condemn them rather than love and invite them in. \u003cbr\u003eYou would gossip and destroy and tear down other works of God. \u003cbr\u003eEither way you would lose your joy, because your eyes would be fixed on yourself and people instead of on Jesus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd if that didn’t work, \u003cb\u003eI would intoxicate you with the mission of God rather than God Himself.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen you would worship a cause instead of Jesus.\u003cbr\u003eYou would fight each other to have the most important roles.\u003cbr\u003eYou would burn out from striving.\u003cbr\u003eYou would think that success is measured by the results you see.\u003cbr\u003eYou would build platforms for applause rather than to display God.\u003cbr\u003eThen all your time and effort would be spent on becoming important rather than on knowing Jesus and loving people. The goals would be to gather followers, earn fancy job titles, publish books, build big ministries rather than to seek the souls of men and the glory of God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd if that didn’t work, \u003cb\u003eI would make you suffer. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen maybe you would think God is evil rather than good. \u003cbr\u003eYour faith would shrink. \u003cbr\u003eYou would get bitter and weary and tired rather than flourish and grow and become more like Christ. \u003cbr\u003eYou would try to control your life rather than step into the plans He has for you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe enemy is telling you that freedom is only found in finally proving to yourself and to the world that . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eyou\u003c\/i\u003e are important. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eyou\u003c\/i\u003e are in control. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eyou\u003c\/i\u003e are liked. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eyou\u003c\/i\u003e are happy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eyou\u003c\/i\u003e are enough.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eExposing the Lie\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere is the thing. The enemy promises water, but every time we go to his wells, they are empty. He gives us a sip of water, enough that we keep believing him. We have believed the lie that our cravings will be satisfied if we are enough and if we have enough. So we chase image, answers, things, people—and we wonder all the while, Why am I still thirsty?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGod is clear in the book of Jeremiah about what is happening:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWater\u003c\/i\u003e. No human can survive three days without it. No other resource is more essential to sustain life. None.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen you look at maps of some of the most arid places in the world, you find the cities all along rivers and streams of water. \u003cb\u003eWhere there is water, there is life.\u003c\/b\u003e Vegetation, animals, industry, human flourishing.\u003cb\u003e And in the absence of water, there is death\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t think you would have picked up this book if you didn’t feel thirsty. I believe you are here because you are so thirsty you can’t stand it anymore and you pray that maybe this time you will find living, lasting water for life. I am here because I want to fight for you to live, no longer thirsty but filled. I found water. I found rest. And I will show you where it lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is water for you. Not just enough to quench your thirst but an unlimited supply that will fill you and then come pouring out of you into a thirsty world. But the water you need is found in only one Source.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ll tell you right up front, there is no secret here. Just one answer to your thirst:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJesus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink,” He says in the gospel of John. “Whoever believes in me. . . streams of living water will flow from within him.”3\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe alone is the Source from which flows all the things we crave and hope to become.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI love that I can begin here, making no empty promises. Because my single goal is to lead your thirsty soul to streams of living water, to Jesus. He always delivers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy go here?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePractically speaking, nothing I am facing in my life changed that day on the dirt floor in Houston. And yet everything changed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t feel so alone. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI felt relief. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI felt loved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI felt like I could take a deep breath.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI felt known.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI believed Jesus more. That He forgives and is in this all with me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI felt the groundswell of freedom that comes from living with Nothing. To. Prove.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI should warn you that finding our way out of the desert of striving and pressure will not be easy. But I hope you’ll come with me anyway. I’ll show you how I found my way out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s start at the beginning, when I learned to chase mirages of water in the desert . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart 1 OUR DESERT OF STRIVING\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy Quiet Confession\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe voice has been in my head most of my life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI am not enough.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe hoisted me up on his lap, and my twelve-year-old scrawny legs dangled over the arm of his worn plaid recliner. Daddy is a dreamer, and this is where we dreamed. His six-foot frame easily collapsed the chair into position, and the two of us stared at the popcorn ceiling and analyzed the world together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Any boys paying attention to you, Jennie?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI offered an obligatory giggle because that was a silly thought at twelve. Soon after, boys would become the object of my most obsessive interest, but not yet. Not only was I lanky, but my grandmother had cut my hair down to the nub only a year before. I’m sure her intention wasn’t as unkind as it felt. Then she cocked her head and decided it would look even better with a perm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy elegant silver-haired grandmother and my fifth-grade self had matching hairdos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo no, Dad. There were no boys. Well, except for Henry, whose blond mop of hair was wilder than his behavior. After my tragic fifthgrade hair incident, Henry kindly asked if my hair had been sucked off by a vacuum cleaner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYep. That still stings a bit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDaddy and I dreamed and wondered. Grades. Friends. Sports. Boys. He rattled off subjects as if they were part of a secret directory of things daddies everywhere are given to ask their daughters when it becomes difficult to converse with them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe list wasn’t meant to catalog all his expectations; he was just checking in, helping his awkward little darting-eyed girl set goals and find her place. Mostly he was prying, though I only know it now that I’ve parented a few twelve-year-olds of my own. He couldn’t know that at the time, my little first-born brain was racing to assimilate the list and, with it, taking note of a line just beyond my reach. A thick black finish line that marked the place I would accomplish this growing list of imagined and unachievable expectations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat line would wait indefinitely in the distant border of my mind, enticing me to reach it. Within me, for most of my life, would live a theory that I assumed was a fact: It was possible to arrive at a destination where I would finally prove myself. I would arrive at the line marking the place where I finally measured up to my family, my peers, my God, and my own expectations. But like the mirage in the desert, every time I thought I finally was closing in, the line backed itself up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt all started before I was old enough to notice or be noticed by the boys, when the thought first occurred to me . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI was not enough.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring my freshman year at the University of Arkansas, some friends coerced me into joining them in a long line for the Razorbacks cheerleader tryouts. Obviously I was not going to make it—I wasn’t much of an athlete. There was the one season of soccer in first grade. Then I tried to run track one year and melodramatically yet genuinely fainted after running the 800 m in my first meet. I did take gymnastics, but I never made the cheerleading squad until my senior year of high school. I don’t know if I wasn’t good enough or if I made myself so nauseously nervous that I didn’t smile. In any case, I knew I wouldn’t make it on the college level, but it felt fun to pretend for a few days that I could.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrowing up in Arkansas, I’d gone with my dad to all the Razorbacks games, and what did I do? I didn’t watch the boys in pads on the field. Along with a lot of the other little girls in the stadium, I memorized every move the cheerleaders made. Now here I was standing in that line with some of the most darling, athletic girls I’d ever seen, all wearing their National Cheerleaders Association instructor shirts. They held résumés listing every award they’d won and each special team they’d graced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had no résumé. One year as a high school cheerleader didn’t justify a résumé.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI almost walked away, but I stayed. Despite my lack of résumé, I somehow accidentally made cheerleader in college. Now, I realize you may be put off by these seemingly random stories from my early life with blond boys named Henry and cheerleading tryouts, but hang with me. The world doesn’t wait until you reach a certain age to issue you an identity. From childhood we begin defining ourselves by the loudest messages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnyway, with a red little hog on my face and a tiny uniform and inadequacy and fear as near and dear companions, I arrived at my first practice along with the girls who deserved to be there. I felt like a fraud. Add to it that, despite my unremarkable height of five foot three, somehow in the world of college cheerleaders I was one of the tallest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt all just felt like a tremendous mistake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur coach led us up to the second floor of the gym we would soon call home for three to four hours each day. The second floor stretched out down a long white hallway with doors leading to offices. The only thing visible at the end of the hallway was a medical scale. We lined up and stepped on the rickety metal scale. The coach held a clipboard and scribbled down our weight beside each of our names. She would go on to do this every six weeks for the next several years of my life. If our weight crept up from that point more than a few pounds, the coaches would tell us to lose weight or be benched. That only happened to me once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen a little girl who never felt lovely enough met a college career of scales and began a deep tailspin into a five-year eating disorder and obsession to try to control her appearance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll because of the dark familiar line in the distance reminding me . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI was not enough.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“People don’t think about you as much as you think they do.” My practical mom used to reassure me of this when I was in seventh grade and built massive conspiracy theories about why I didn’t get invited to crucial social events such as Stephanie Angelo’s end-of-year sleepover. She meant it to be comforting. And strangely it was. I never wanted to be the object of people’s thoughts; it seemed too risky when my oxygen was their approval.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I became a pastor’s wife. And guess what? My mom’s middle school mantra failed me. Because people definitely thought about me more than I wished they did. Whether our kids attended public or private school. How we spent our money. How our kids behaved. Who our friends were. How my husband was leading and even what attire he wore. All these topics and more were regularly brought to my attention or questioned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost weekends my husband, Zac, was busy prepping sermons, and every Sunday morning he was gone before I was even awake. Usually Conner, my oldest, was up first and the other two kids would follow. Each week brought renewed fights over brushing hair and teeth and what everyone should wear. Eventually I gave up on idealistic concepts such as hair bows. My earnest dream was to arrive at church on time, but it was rarely realized.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEventually kids were wrangled into their Sunday school classes, and I began the walk down the hall to the meet-and-greet called church.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve never been great at meet-and-greets, but as a pastor’s wife, I came to fear them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou may find it helpful to know that I have a condition called attention deficit disorder (ADD). I know a lot of people joke about having ADD, but for those of us who actually have it, our brains work differently than everyone else’s. My ADD makes it difficult to focus in rooms full of people. I guess most people’s brains can ignore the other conversations happening, the baby crying, the worship that has already started in the gym, the footsteps coming up behind you. But I can’t. I hear everything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eADD brains have two modes: one is called hyperfocus, the ability to zero in on one thing so completely that it is as if not one other thing exists on the whole earth, as if I am in a completely other world. The other mode is that the brain moves so quickly from one thing to the next that it is nearly impossible to focus on anything. If I am in control of a situation, for instance you and I are having a quiet conversation over coffee, I can turn on my hyperfocus drive and you would never know I have ADD. But a meet-and-greet is torture for my brain. A simple conversation becomes a daunting challenge, especially after managing three young kids all morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach Sunday after dropping off the kids, I walked down the hall of our church plant full of dread. The people were not the problem; I adored the people. Their seeming expectations of me were the problem. I desperately wanted to prove to them that I was an asset to Zac in the way I cared for our people. When you plant a church, there are no buildings, no programs, no history to help visitors assess whether this church is a good fit, so people often decide if they want to stay based on the pastor and his vision and his wife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDo we trust the pastor and his wife? Do we like them? Can I follow them? I knew that each week in our small growing church, most people were asking themselves these questions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTodd must have passed me in that hallway when I was full of dread. He likely said hi to me and smiled. I didn’t smile back—because I didn’t hear him say hi.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne week I got a call from Todd’s wife. “Are you upset with us?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNothing could be further from the truth. They were some of our easiest friends. Why was Rachel asking me this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRachel went on, “Todd says he has tried to speak to you several times on Sunday mornings in the hallway, and you always ignore him.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrust me, passive-aggressive is just not my shtick. If anything, I am probably too direct when something is bothering me. Of course I wasn’t mad and ignoring Todd, but how could I explain all the pressure I felt on Sundays to measure up and perform? How could I describe what it felt like to walk into church with three barely dressed kids and a church full of people deciding if we were enough for them? How could I tell her I have ADD and I didn’t even hear Todd multiple weeks in a row?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I didn’t. I just apologized and assured her we were great.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut from that point on when I walked down that hallway, I added to my growing list of pressure-soaked to-dos: smile and say hi to every person I pass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI was not enough.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy kids’ school sent an e-mail asking to meet. Across from me, three administrators sat with their prepared notes, and I sat helpless and completely ill prepared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Your child is not succeeding, and we wonder if he is getting the help he needs at home?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We know you work and travel a lot.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We know you all are so busy.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the words were said kindly, they expressed my worst fears:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI am not enough.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI am not doing enough.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI am not measuring up as a mother.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy child is not measuring up, and it is my fault.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI ached to offer my genuine explanations: I could not love this kid any more than I do. I am always helping him with schoolwork. Oh, how I pray for him. I have missed so much work trying to get him the right help.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t say anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstead, I fought back tears and stifled all my inadequate defenses. I listened. I asked questions. And then I walked out and collapsed in tears in the driver’s seat of my car. I couldn’t breathe. I drove home and ran past Zac, who looked at me to ask who was taking Kate, our fourteen-year-old, to track practice. I couldn’t answer. I was just looking for somewhere to hide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI lay down on the floor of my closet, grabbed a dirty T-shirt from the floor, and hid my face in it. I cried harder than any human should. When I finally took a deep breath and dried the tears and opened my eyes, my first thought was, Dang, my closet is a wreck!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy breath was gone and the tears in the T-shirt were back. Leave it to a disaster of a closet to push me over the edge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI was not enough.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor so many years the voice has been in my head: I am not enough.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIs it possible you hear that same voice?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe you’ve never struggled with an eating disorder or with the pressures of being a pastor’s wife, but I’m convinced nearly all of us feel this incredible pressure to prove we measure up in some way. Every morning we face the list of tasks left undone the previous night, the expectations of our family and coworkers, the burden to be the beautiful,","brand":"WaterBrook","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233441919205,"sku":"NP9781601429629","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781601429629.jpg?v=1767733930","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/nothing-to-prove-isbn-9781601429629","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}