I’ve been lied to.

I’ve been told by my culture that “I am enough”.

Pinterest screams it at me –

Oh, how I want that to be true.

But I’m not.  I’m really, really not.

If I were enough I wouldn’t struggle with anxiety.  I would have a handle on all of my struggles and the fears that creep into my soul with the cares of this broken world.

If I were enough I could heal every hurting soul that comes my way.  I would have all the answers for every lost person I encounter.

If I were enough, there wouldn’t be an endless, nameless longing in my heart.  My confidence wouldn’t falter.  I would never screw up or fall down. I would be in control.

I am NOT enough.

If I believe the myth that I am enough, I set myself up for devastating disappointment.  And I have done that one too many times.

This past weekend a figurative carpet was pulled out from under me that literally made my knees hit the floor.  The proverbial bottom fell out from under me.  I was left stunned, broken, bewildered. Ultimately, I was reminded in the harshest of ways that I had a very unhealthy need to be in control of my circumstances, and that, indeed, I was not.

Somehow, I had fallen prey to the belief that I was enough.

I was NOT enough.

My emotional collapse proved it. I wasn’t brave enough to handle it.  I wasn’t strong enough to bear it.  I wasn’t humble enough to share it.  I wasn’t faith-filled enough to see through it.

I was nowhere close to enough.

I couldn’t fix it.  I couldn’t change it.  All I could do in that crumpled mess on the floor was acknowledge that I wasn’t enough.  .

Not once did God tell me in my brokenness that I was enough.  Not once.

God doesn’t lie.

But what He did tell me as I sat in a puddle of tears was that I was loved. Deeply.  Intimately.  I felt His arms wrap around my shivering, helpless shoulders and whisper hope into my ear.

That HE was MORE THAN ENOUGH.

That He was bigger than the pain inside of me.  That He was aware.  Present.  Working in intricate, mysterious ways that I couldn’t see yet through the haze of my grief.  That His healing would go far beyond what I could comprehend and reach to places and people that have never even crossed my mind.

Because He is more than enough.

Healing started in that puddle on the floor.  Long before He began to show me how He was working in the circumstance, He was healing me of my “enough-ness.”

He helped me let go of anything I had so desperately held on to that made me think that I was enough.  Pride – gone.  Control – obliterated.

Pride took with it massive amounts of fear.  Control left with the remnants of anxiety.

I have finally had enough of being enough.

It’s so amazing to me how God meets us at that place of surrender. He didn’t miss a single beat between my release and His entry.  Every empty space that had been taken up by pride, fear, need for control was now free to hold His grace, His comfort, His peace and joy.

His More-Than-Enough-ness.

I still maintain my spot on the floor, emptied of me and refilled with Him.  But instead of my hands on my face in despair, those same hands, with very different tears, are lifted high in gratitude. Relief. Awe has overcome me in the most profound sense of the word.

My freedom has come in knowing that I am not enough and never will be.

My hope has come in knowing that He is and always will be even more.

Have you been trying to be enough?

Are so tired and discouraged as you realize you can’t be?

Are you ready to give it all up?  To let go of control, pride, etc.?

Are you ready to let Jesus move into that empty space of enough-ness, MORE than enough-ness?

Jesus, help us.  Help us not to be devastated by not being enough, but relieved.  Help us to willfully rest, hands wide open, in that fact that YOU ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH.  For each of us in our present situations.  In our futures.  In restoring our pasts.  Show us how to relinquish the need for control to you so that we might know inexplicable peace.  That we might trust You more.  That we might see more of Your love and miraculous healing that we miss when we are trying to do it ourselves.

Take us beyond ourselves and straight to You, our Creator, Lord, Father and Friend.

Hear our cry….

 “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”…He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.  You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.  A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you…For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways…“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him…” from Psalm 91:1-16

Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. – Isaiah 41:10

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. – John 3:30