Not Just Enough

As I flopped down in my chair tonight to eat dinner (A) asked what was wrong.  I started to tell him “nothing” but knew he would read right through that, so I admitted… it’s that age old female dilemma… I’m not Wonder Woman. 

So I began to tell him what’s “wrong”… One look around my house right now is enough to bury my head in the sand.  There is laundry waiting to be done, laundry needing to be folded, a stack of Mega Blocks and tractors knee deep in the corner of living room but strewn corner to corner, a pile of dishes in the sink, and those stupid fruit flies coming from my broken garbage disposal (of course the dumb thing would quit in the middle of grinding week old coleslaw- which is impossible to completely remove from the bottom of said broken disposal).  I have papers to grade, parents to respond to, a Google Classroom that needs my attention, and lesson plans to be tweaked for later in the week.  I need to get in a few more intense trainings for a run we are doing this weekend, there are plans to be created and put in place for a new ministry position I am taking on next Sunday, I have a blog to write for tomorrow, and I desperately just want to sleep.  I read something on social media this weekend from two ladies I hugely admire that made me feel like I am a terrible example as a woman and a selfish mom, and one look at this to-do list and mess around me leaves me thinking that assessment of myself is very possibly correct. 

Oh this mess...

And just as I finished telling (A) my list of shortcomings (a) took a piece of his dinner which I had taken 30 minutes of time and energy to lovingly prepare (mostly because I felt guilty for not cooking for the last several days and I am worried about gaining weight from our on-the-go eating…) and that ornery little boy threw the piece of food on the floor and announced “I throw it!”  I wanted to cry from the overwhelming feeling of not being enough. 

At that point (A) decided to tell (a) he was done eating and it was time for his bath.  Which was code for “let’s give Momma some time so she can deal with the things that are stressing her.”  As I finished my dinner in two minutes of peace I began to pray about what I was going to write tonight.  I felt far too drained and inadequate to share anything from my heart, so I began wracking my brain for something brief and simple that I could throw out when a still, small voice audibly reminded me “In ME, you are sooooo enough.”

That was a very powerful reminder that I desperately needed to hear tonight.  By myself, it is true, I am not enough.  I do not have it all together, I do not wear a cape, I cannot make it all happen, and I will not do everything right.  But through Christ, I can be enough. 

              “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

If I will focus on Him and who He is calling me to be, the other things will fall in place.  The house isn’t going to clean itself, and the papers aren’t magically going to be graded, but He will lead me to be the “enough” I need to be as a wife, mom, teacher, ministry team member, and friend.  And I have to learn to accept that as “enough” for me, because actually the verse in 2 Peter says what God provides is not just enough to get by… it says He has given us “EVERYTHING we need…”  What a gracious gift! 

One of my favorite Christian authors is Holley Gerth.  In her book You’re Already Amazing (Revell, 2012) she says this:

              “I think the enemy tricks us into believing we are not enough because he knows if we discover the truth, we’ll be unstoppable.” 

So now that my little self-pity party is over, I’m going to get some sleep, and tackle tomorrow with an unstoppable kind of enough, the “EVERYTHING” God’s divine power has graciously given me in Him.