Are you ENOUGH?

Well?  Are you enough?

I'm not.  Not even close.

I look back over my life and there is so much "not enough" going on.

I wasn't a good ENOUGH daughter.

I wasn't a good ENOUGH student.

I wasn't a good ENOUGH sister.

You get the idea.

I'm not a good enough mom, wife, homemaker, cook, friend, teacher, and certainly not a good enough Christian.

I know I don't pray enough.  I don't read my Bible enough.  I don't praise enough.  I don't edify or encourage enough.  I fall so short of my own expectations, how can I hope to meet someone else's expectation?

I am simply NOT enough.

Even in the hallowed halls of Women's Bible studies, we can come away feeling that we are not enough.  There is always someone in the group who is MORE.  She is more Godly, more spiritual, more respectful, more patient,  more kind, more creative, compassionate, more helpful....she's moremoremore!

In our efforts to become BETTER, we keep hitting that wall of NOT ENOUGH.

I really struggle with this sometimes,  yeah I guess in all honesty this is something I have struggled with for a L. O. N. G. time.  I look around and it seems that everyone else is more.  They are more gifted.  They are more blessed.  They are more than I think I can ever be.  The only way to judge ENOUGH is to hold yourself up for scrutiny against someone else.  This is always the first step to NOT ENOUGH.  Measuring our qualities against someone else invariably leaves us with that bitter taste of not enough.  What we don't take into account is that she may be looking at you and getting that same bitter taste.  She is not enough either.




To determine "enough" we have to consider our strengths and acknowledge our weaknesses.  But it is not fair that I hold my weaknesses up against the strengths of someone else.  Sadly I'm looking at this huge stainless steel shelf I bought to keep in the kitchen because I had too much stuff for the counters.  I started out with my microwave, my kitchen aide mixer, a beautiful set of colored mixing bowels.  I had/have three bins with labels stating their contents.  And on the very bottom I keep the cat and dog foods.  It was lovely.  I contemplated putting a potted ivy on the top shelf.  I stuck a fake one up there so I didn't have to figure out how to keep the real one alive.  It was so organized.




Just this very afternoon, I looked at this shelf and wondered what happened.  There are bottles of BBQ sauce, water, boxes of pasta, little cartons or fruit, fruit juices and soda all shoved into the space that was supposed to be ENOUGH.  If I was really brave I would have taken a photo of MY shelf.  I'm not.  That brave, I mean.

I looked at this monster I created and sadly shook my head.  I an not organized enough.  I need to be MORE like my friend, Sheri.


I am told she has bins and baskets for everything and there are labels on them all.  She and I have teased each other about our love for our label maker.  She, because apparently she likes it all to be organized.  I label things because if I don't...I have no clue where it is or what it does.  I recently started labeling electric cords.  Have you ever looked into a box of electric adapters, picked up one and said "I have no clue what this goes to."  I have.  I threw it away in my effort to declutter my spaces.  2 weeks later I picked up my cordless screw driver and said...."where did that charging cord go?"  uh oh.

So back to Sheri. Okay, here's the thing.  I have no clue how organized Sheri really is.  I have been TOLD she is organized.   I've not seen her organization so I have this mental image in my head.  I trust she is very organized just like my friends have claimed.  But having no connection with the real picture, the one in my head is impossible for me to reach.

I was watching an episode of the detective series MONK.  My sister loaned the dvd set to me for watching while recovering from surgeries and treatments.  I find it very entertaining to set up my ironing board right in front of the tv and iron away while watching MONK.  In one episode he opened his fridge and inside were perfectly stacked plastic containers of food.  Labeled, stacked plastic containers of food.  And I sighed.  I wish my fridge looked like that.  sigh.  But it doesn't and I have to let that go.  Now.  How many of you just said "Tina, IRONS?  oh, I am not _____ enough to iron our clothes."

More often the images of ENOUGH in our head are an unrealistic expectation...like my mental picture of what Sheri's kitchen cabinets and closets look like.  (And I will just DIE of shame if they are perfectly organized!)   I have never seen her kitchen, so in MY head its spotless, perfectly organized, gleaming, with NOTHING on the counters...because of course, SHE is organized ENOUGH for everything to have a home.  I admire Beth Moore, the women's Bible study leader very greatly.  I watch her videos instructing me on some Bible truth and I'm caught up...she's always dressed so cute.  She probably rolls out of bed that cute.  She must have been a great mother to have her daughters so supportive and involved in her ministry.  She must read her Bible every moment...that she's not writing books and devotionals.  I will never be enough...not like Beth Moore.

I look at some of the women in MY Bible study and I think again...I am not enough.  She is more spiritual.  She is a better wife.  She is more fun.  She is always baking.  She is so patient with her children.   I really don't know them well enough to know if they are MORE than me.  I just MAKE them MORE.

But I am so wrong.

2 Corinthians 12:9

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 

I love the word "sufficient".  It may be my new favorite word..it can go behind SERENITY, CACOPHONY and now SUFFICIENT.

I looked up the definition of the word "Sufficient".

suf·fi·cient 

adjective

1.   adequate for the purpose; enough: sufficient proof; sufficient protection.

I have read this Bible verse over 100 times. I have always applied the context of the verse, to speaking of something that ails us.  Something that we pray to be delivered from.

^{2 Corninthians 12 :8 - 10}   Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. ⁹ But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. ¹⁰ So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Usually I look at this verse when I am reciting the reasons that I cannot do something.  I can't get through this pain, this illness, this treatment, this death.  And we are reminded that God's grace is sufficient for us.

But today I was steam cleaning the floors, and grumbling because there was a spot that was NOT coming up.  Being totally transparent here, my house has been an nasty mess for about a month now.  The last 2 weeks before my son's wedding on 4/30 we started the DROP AND RUN mode of living.   So many details had to be dealt with, that we ran in dropped what we had and ran back out.  Enough laundry was done to keep us in clean underwear.  We switched to paper plates and plastic tableware so we didn't have to keep up with dishes.  My OWN expectations of how I run my home flew out the window.  The day after this wedding, I had a medical procedure that has slowed me down a tad and certainly affected how efficiently I can get something done.  I can't carry laundry baskets, I couldn't mow.  I couldn't get do a lot that needed to be done.  I'm getting better at finding new ways to get stuff done.  So I am struggling slowly to bring my home up to my own standards. Just as soon as I get satisfied with one room, I move to another room that totally knocks me down at the knees.

So I was scrubbing at this stubborn spot and don't forget I was grumbling.  And in the middle of the scrubbing and grumbling THIS popped into my head.  

My grace is sufficient FOR you.

My grace is sufficient IN you.

And it sat me back.  Actually one of those holy moments that I should have slipped off my shoes for.  God had just spoken to me.

My grace is ENOUGH for you.

My grace is ENOUGH in you.

I AM enough.  

All the other stuff is just the silliness that we women often get all caught up in.  Measuring our weakness against someone else's strength.  Accepting someone else's (or worse - the media's) definition of what we are supposed to look like, sound like and behave like even in our Christian communities.  We demean who God created us to be.  God created me to be ENOUGH of what HE created me FOR.  I have a good idea he did not create me to be an organizing guru for the masses.  But I hear Him telling me that I am more than enough for the purpose he created me.  Whatever it is that God is asking of me, I am more than enough.

I don't have to hold myself up against someone else to judge how well I am doing.  God created me with the gifts me I need to be enough.  He only judges my obedience.

I am enough!!!!