There is something quietly brewing in my head today.  I don’t know if I can even begin to get it onto the paper yet.  So many times it takes time to brew it…but if I don’t catch it at just the right time it disappears into the wind.  Frustrating.  I used to be able to remember my writing thoughts, like whispers in my mind.  Now they are more flighty and it not caught at just the right moment they take offense and fly.  This one has been developing since I wrote about the room of inadequacy.  It has been coming up in conversations, songs, and sermons.  I have heard it on the news, and in movies, so I think it is relevant.    God spoke it to me quietly in my time with him.  He said, “You are enough.”  Simple yet so profound.  We would probably all say we believe that statement; however we do not live it because deep inside, in our secret places, we don’t really believe it.  It is difficult to live something we do not believe.

I watch my children trying to be something they are not because of the world around them.  I see God fearing people at church trying so hard to please him, as if one more activity will make them better people.  God’s proclamation came to me in a time when I was striving to work hard to be better at work.  It just seemed to me that I am not enough.  I do not have the energy to be the employee that I was asked to be, let alone clean my house and raise my children.  At that time it felt like life was trying to pull me apart.  In the past I might not have recognized it, but post-cancer vision is different.  I no longer simply call these things “stress” and move on.  I want to dig deeper and get to the roots of my internal strivings because I do not think I can plant my feet otherwise.  The thought that I am enough could be the bedrock of strength to hold me firm when life is swirling around me.  Stress is a very real part of life in the 21^st century…but it is not the only part.

So how do I get the idea “I am enough” from my head to my heart?  How do I begin to live it?  That is one reason I haven’t been writing.  I am grappling with this amazing possibility that I am what God wants; that I am not in need of a complete makeover…at least not one that I undertake on my own.  If I can rest in this truth and be content in who God made me in this moment, I am sure he will be faithful to develop me further as life moves forward.  After all, he has done it to this point.  Nothing that I have strived to accomplish has been long standing transformation.  The areas of my life in which I have changed have come as a result of his hand, not mine.

There are so many areas of weakness I see in myself.  I cannot get past those because I feel less of a person; less than what I was created to be.  Don’t you?  Deep down.  That sense of inadequacy calls us to examine our failings.  Yet I am hearing God calling me to look at my strengths.  To look at the parts of my life, my calling, and my ministry that have been a blessing to him and to others.  That is hard.  Why is that so hard?  Why is it our brains do not want to admit that he has been at work and he has accomplished great things through us?  I guess it sounds prideful.  But more than that, I think it is uncomfortable to feel it…so we choose not to, closing our hearts off to his delight in us. If I open myself up to those feelings I feel so central to him, like I am important to his plan.  Even though I have said that I am for years and somewhere inside I know it, I fight the FEELING that goes with it.  I don’t know if any of this makes since to you…forgive my rambling.  I think it is like when you are recognized for some accomplishment in your life.  You go to receive the award all smiles, feeling good that somebody somewhere recognized your hard work but when you are standing there in the applause it is uncomfortable.  At least it is for me.  I feel so unworthy.  Yet here is the creator of the universe applauding who I am…saying that I am enough.  That is unsettling to me.  I guess that is where the works come in.  We try to make that uncomfortable feeling go away by “serving” and “doing more.”  That way we can feel like we earned this favor of his, and as long as we are moving forward and doing good we do not have to face his utter delight in us.  We hide from him with our actions.  Can I stand in his presence and let him applaud me?  Can I receive his unbelievable love without trying to prove myself to him?  I am not sure that is possible…more tomorrow.