My Heart, The Liar

In the middle of this worship song at church, the part where my soul usually soars with passion and hope, I had to stop singing. Stop cold, as if my jaw locked up.

Through every trial
My soul will sing
Christ is enough for me
Everything I need is in You
Everything I need

It was Mother’s Day Sunday, and I was in the midst of a “trial” (like many moms on a “holiday” that’s supposed to honor them, but ends up wounding them in a multitude of ways). I had spent my church preparation time stewing over my trial, a knife that had been thrust into my heart with increasing frequency over the previous several weeks. Then this:

Christ is enough for me.

I couldn’t sing it. It wasn’t true. I heard the admonition come straight from God’s heart to mine, a TASER® wrapped in unconditional love and grace that seized my spirit with a jolt that was both painful and beautiful.

Really? I Am enough? Despite the wounds of others? Despite the sadness? Despite the emptiness, the loneliness, that washes through your tiny piece of the life-on-earth pie? I’m enough when you are alone hour after hour? When you want something from someone that you can’t have, even if it’s something good, something I created, something I have promised in my Word to bless and nurture and flourish? When you doubt yourself, am I enough? When you doubt another, or life itself, I’m enough? Really?

I read the Bible a lot. I love God’s Word. He tells me on every page that He is enough for our every doubt, our every fear. For the bitter segments of life as well as the sweet. For the parched deserts, the waves that threaten to suck us under… and the sunsets that take our breath away and can never be accurately painted or photographed, reminding us that nothing on earth compares to Him.

I want to worship Him wholeheartedly with the words, “You are enough for me.”

So many days I fail.

But we can find encouragement in God’s Word. In fact, the Bible says, “…for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13 ESV).

I recently read something about starting “right where you are”, and that also encourages me. That’s all God asks of us. Start here, this minute, asking… seeking… knocking. With a whispered prayer, let your soul cry, “Lord, give me the belief that you are enough!”

He will answer that, I believe. Start there, sweet friends.
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Photo credit: stillsbyhernan.com