Enough!

At the end of the day today, I was feeling so well.  My head wasn't hurting.  I had a lovely friend come over today and teach me to do granny squares.  We had lunch together with Emma.  She was so sweet and I enjoyed myself so much.  I had the bed made today, well sort of.  I fixed dinner and cleaned up all the dinner dishes.  I sat down to work on my granny square, feeling I was doing so well, better than I thought I would actually.  It had been a good day.  

Then, one of my family members comes in and says they can't find an article of clothing they need for tomorrow.  An article of clothing that I never even knew existed in the first place.  They referred to it as being lost in the abyss.  I searched through all the closets and hampers, under other articles of clothing on hangers way back in closets.  I looked through my baskets of clean clothes, some folded and some unfolded.  Nothing.

My laundry is my weak spot.  I work on it but I never, ever get caught up.  I feel often like a failure as a homemaker because I don't keep everything spotless, all dishes clean, all laundry done, feet up and having conversation with my family every evening.  It is defeating.  

Tonight though, when I felt the old fear welling up inside my heart, telling me I will never be enough.  Saying "You will never get it right!".  I heard my Savior say to me "No, even if you had it all together, it would never be enough".  The deceiver, Satan, will always set the bar higher and higher.  There will never be a time when you will have prolonged victory in your own strength.  

But…  But is a wonderful word God uses in the Bible.  Often, when a problem is presented, the Word will say "But God".  God is always the One who solves our problem.  When we turn to Him with our tears in our eyes, our hearts broken, "But God" comes into play.  We may not be able to solve our problem, "But God" can, always can.  Always will.  

In the grand story of the world, we have a problem.  We have a problem and no matter how long and hard we work to solve the problem, we can't.  That problem is sin.  We have wronged God by doing things our way.  By leaving Him out of the solution for our problem, we are defenseless against our need to solve it our own way.  We work to improve our circumstances.  We work to improve our appearance.  But in our deepest heart, we know we are not enough.  Not enough.

But God…sent His Own Precious Son, to be enough where we cannot be enough.  We cannot be good enough, or pretty enough, or entertained enough, or talented enough, to overcome our feeling that we are not enough.  

The Lord Jesus is and always has been perfect.  Perfect in every way.  He never had a bad behavior of any kind.  He never acted in any unkind way.  As we are imperfect, we need someone to come in to our hearts and perfect us.  To mend our broken heart.  To forgive us for what we have done wrong, where we have ignored God, where we do not measure up to His perfect standard.  To make us enough.  

We need Jesus to fill our hearts.  He is enough in every way to solve our problem.  "Relax", I heard Him say to my spirit.  "I am enough".  I am your "Enough".  

What a wonderful Savior is Jesus!  He has everything I need, including me, in the palm of His hand.

Embracing pain and suffering.

I've been reading Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller.  It is helping me understand the value and reason for suffering.  I have been through suffering in many ways.  I have sought to avoid suffering and sought to bear suffering well.  I am realizing that the act of suffering itself is beneficial.  To embrace suffering seems contrary to rational thought but it is imperative if we are to grow and become all God has planned for us.    

I searched the meaning of the word suffer, and this website's explanation was interesting to me.  

“Robert Johnson, a Jungian oriented author, points out that the word "suffer" comes from the Latin sub plus ferre meaning "to bear or to allow." To suffer in this sense is to allow something to happen, perhaps, to allow ourselves to experience the responsibility for life choices which permits consciousness to grow. When we suffer in this sense we are opening ourselves to experience the fullness of life’s diversity as a natural process of growth. Such a "suffering" with life must occur for psychological and spiritual maturity to develop. The philosopher Alan Watts speaks to this point when he says, "Because human consciousness must involve both pleasure and pain, to strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is, in effect, to strive for the loss of consciousness." Life’s goal is to increase consciousness; so, the temptation to avoid life’s legitimate pain must be resisted.” - http://www.lessons4living.com/happiness.htm

Then my thoughts were:  Continually looking for pleasure or less suffering, is the loss of consciousness.  That is why people do drugs, to lessen their experience of suffering, to be less conscious of it.  Enduring suffering is the process that allows us to feel, to feel other’s hurts, to have compassion.  Jesus has compassion on us because He has suffered like we do.  He knows how to comfort us in our suffering.  God does not stamp out suffering because it is good for us.  It makes us alive.  It gives us dimension.  It deepens our faith in Him.  It removes us from the shallowness of self-absorption and pleasure seeking that makes us dead and hollow and unloving and unneeding of God.  Suffering is a break with the pleasure we so admire, but which is our undoing.  Pleasure is an addiction to not feeling anything real or true and is a numbing effort to relieve us of the pain of being separated from God.  

Many people question God's goodness because there is suffering in the world.  Suffering can be a result of evil in the world, but I think our suffering is God's gift in the face of evil.  Our lives on earth are meant to make us see our need for God and to live in relationship with Him.  He knows that He is the true source of our joy.