Erica Wiggenhorn struggled with a fear of inadequacy, impostor syndrome, fear of failure and perfectionism most of her life. God finally asked her, “When are we going to deal with this? Are you going to just allow this to steal all of your joy for the rest of your life? Or are you going to let me bring some healing here?”

Erica recently wrote a book called, Letting God Be Enough: Why Striving Keeps You Stuck and How Surrender Sets You Free, in which she shares her journey of healing and the Scriptures that God used to heal her from her fears and perfectionism. 

Erica discovered she wasn’t the only one struggling. “I came to realize that this is something that is a scheme of the enemy against God’s daughters far and wide,” Erica told The Stream. The enemy was wreaking havoc in women all over the place. “I thought, ‘Well, if God can bring healing to me, He can bring healing to anyone.'”

Self-Doubt and Self-Sufficiency

Self-doubt is closely tied to self-sufficiency, Erica stressed. “As long as we have something in our mind of what our life is supposed to look like … we will continually struggle with self-doubt because we cannot control all the decisions that our kids make, or even our spouses make.” She continued:

There are things that happen out of our control. We can’t cure a spouse who’s struggling with addiction. We can’t return our prodigal child home. We can’t cure cancer. If we have assumed the responsibility to secure life the way we want it, and then we come up against these circumstances and situations that are beyond our control, we instantly are flooded with self doubt because we know that it’s beyond our ability to do.

Instead of constantly living in this place of striving and self-sufficiency and manipulation and trying to secure all of these outcomes and keep up this image, the antidote to all of that is intimacy. Intimacy with God.

We must move to a place where we trust that God has a plan for our life. “And it may not always look exactly like what we think the ideal life would look like, but it’s the best life, because it’s God’s plan for our life.” As we draw closer to God, “we begin to know His character more deeply. And as we know His character more deeply, we can begin to trust that His plans for us are good.”

Too Big to Handle

Even when situations are tough. Contrary to the saying that God won’t give us more than we can handle, God does allow us to experience things that we cannot handle on our own. “That is probably one of those Christianese terms honestly that drives me the most crazy because when I open my Bible, I see people facing things all day long that are too big to handle.

“It’s not talking about the difficulties and the circumstances of life that are beyond our ability to handle. What God promises, alternatively, is that His presence will always be with us and He will get us to the other side of this circumstance that is beyond our ability to handle.”

Enough Because of God

Erica says that the world wants us to stand in front of our mirror or stand in front of our camera on our phone and cite all of the reasons why we are enough. “And God essentially says, ‘Look, you’re enough because I Am Who I Am. I made you on purpose with a purpose. And that makes you more than enough, dear one.'”

Intentional Trekking

At the end of every chapter, Erica added a section called Intentional Trekking. In this section, Erica provides relevant Scripture verses, biblical truths about the journey, questions that allow readers to process the journey and a closing passionate prayer. 

“Intentional Trekking is really, ‘Okay, we got some great information. How do we walk this out? What does this look like practically in my life? Where am I striving and relying on self sufficiency and therefore feeling stuck, feeling discouraged, feeling overwhelmed? And what does the path to freedom look like in real time in my life?'”

God’s Love

Erica wants readers of the book to say they experienced a closeness with their Father that they’ve never experienced before. And that they finally understand God’s love for them and His heart for them.

“This is a book that is really an invitation to see God’s love for you in a fresh way. You don’t have to perform to earn God’s love. You already have God’s love, you just need to receive it.”

Nancy Flory, Ph.D., is an associate editor at The Stream. You can follow her @NancyFlory3, and follow The Stream @Streamdotorg.