On Wednesdays we are thrilled to fling open the doors to all of YOU! We love hearing your dreaming stories…the lessons you’ve learned, the roads you’ve walked, the dreams He’s planted in your hearts! Today we are excited to welcome Sarah Beth Marr to God-sized Dreams; she shares with us the reminder that as long as we are living out our dream for God, we are enough. Thanks so much for being here, Sarah!

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The audience was as black as night.

All I could see from the stage was the bright lights of the exit signs staring back at me. The tops of the musicians heads and the tips of their bows going back and forth reminded me how so very live this performance was. I was front and center, dancing a ballet I had dreamed of dancing. There in my pointe shoes, pink tights, and pink jeweled costumed, one moment I was dancing my heart out, and one moment I drew a complete blank. All the movements and musical cues I had rehearsed over and over through months of preparation suddenly left my brain as I honed in on this one thought,

I am not good enough.

In that moment, I feared that my director would suddenly realize that he had made a horrible mistake in casting me as this front and center gal in this beautiful ballet. I suddenly felt the pressure of living (or dancing in this instance) up to something that I simply could not live up to. I was aware that I was surrounded by four other beautiful dancers who were more experienced than I was. They had been doing this for years and they were confident. Here I was, this new girl, who was overwhelmed at the pressure to be good enough at the worst possible moment.

The choreography did come back to me. I had one little slip where I nearly fell, but thankfully after one of our exits, I had time to gather myself in the darkness of the wings. The tears were sitting in the corners of my eyes, you know the kind, that if someone asks, “Are you okay?” you don’t answer because you know the tears will fall and not stop. A short verse that my sweet mom had used to encourage me recently slipped into my heart,

“He will not let your foot slip – He who watches over you will not slumber.”
Psalm 121:3 (NLT)

It was enough solid footing for me to go out there on our next entrance, finish the piece, and actually enjoy the rest of the dance.

Maybe in this dream of yours that you are following, you look around and you question why you’re even trying. You see others who are more confident, more qualified, and more experienced.

Me too.

I have felt the weight of not-enough-ness as I pursue my dreams and callings in more ways than I have time to go into. But we don’t have to live in that pressure cooker, standard-chasing kind of way. Looking back there are a few truths that I wish I had held onto before I planted my feet on the stage that evening:

1. The pressure and weight of not-enough-ness paralyzes us. Just as I went blank on stage in that moment, when we get tangled in the web of living up to some invincible standard, our dream or calling stops in its tracks. We can’t breathe or enjoy our dream or calling because we are so suffocated by our feelings of not being enough.
2. When we recognize when we are living in that standard-chasing stance, we can allow that to be an opportunity to pull us into God’s heart. God isn’t measuring our performance. He simply wants us to enjoy our dance. I had lost the joy of dancing in that moment on the stage because I was so caught up in the pressure. God does not want us to be caught up in the pressure, the performance, or anything else in our dreaming. He wants us to be caught up in Him.
3. From there we are propelled forward in our dream. The moment we release the pressure to the One who gave us our dream, is the moment we begin to truly enjoy it all again. The dreaming becomes an enjoyable dance with the Lord again.

Maybe your dream has become more of a grind than a dance lately. Maybe you feel paralyzed by the pressure and defeated by the weight of feeling not good enough.

Today, invite the One who watches over your life, into those feelings. Pull in close to His heart.

Dance on!

Sarah Beth Marr is a wife, mom, writer and speaker. Sarah also danced professionally as a ballet dancer and now uses her experiences in the dance world to encourage women in their own dance through life through her writing and speaking. Sarah’s first book is due to release in January of 2018. You can connect with her at her website, on Facebook, and on Instagram.