Enough

 

I am not satisfied, but I am enough. 

 

When that statement appeared on my blackout poem page yesterday, I knew that something profound had emerged. 

 

There is a restlessness in modern America society that wants us to be more: more wealthy, more beautiful, more successful, to have more likes. 

 

There is this feeling in modern American Christianity that we should never be content. I have even heard it said that when we are content in our relationship with God then we are complacent. That we need to do something different to get ourselves out of comfort. That we need to take a leap of faith.

 

I’m coming to believe that both of these sentiments are wrong.

 

When we constantly strive for more, there is a sense of urgency and competition that creates unneeded stress.

 

When we do not feel that we can be content with God, there is a sense of restlessness and damnation that leads to wonder why we should even try to please a God who cannot be pleased. 

 

No, we do not want to be apathetic about our lives. But we also don’t want to be so ill-at-ease that we cannot find peace. 

 

And so. We must realize that we, at our core, through the love and grace of Jesus Christ, are enough.

 

Yes, there is room to grow. There will always be room to grow. But when we think of life as an organic process that happens naturally in time, then it changes the urgency and competition and restlessness and damnation, and turns them into something beautiful. Like a plant growing its flowers. Natural. Gradual. Steady.

 

Yes, there is room for a deepening understanding of the Love of God and how that Love transforms us. There is room to grow in the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faifhfulness, gentleness, and self-control) and there is room to grow in our understanding of justice and mercy. 

 

But even if we don’t. Even if we stay as we are, doing the best we can with what we have, then we are still enough. 

 

We are still created in the image of God, redeemed by the life and death of Jesus Christ, and so very, very loved as God’s child. 

 

Even Judas. 

 

Even Peter. 

 

Even me. 

 

I am not satisfied, but I am enough. 

 

Amen.

Defining Moments: Whispered Identity

My preferred seat of meeting or learning is at the back of the classroom near a window, away from the door. As such, I try to make a point to be early to classes or meetings on the first day so that I can get a seat in which I will feel both comfortable and safe. I am not a seat hopper. I believe in the sanctity of the seat. Once I find my seat, I return to my seat. And if someone takes my seat, then I feel a slight sense of panic. I’m not a confronter, though. [I’ve only seen one person confront a seat stealer, and that moment was priceless.] Instead, I sit as close to my original seat as possible or try to find another seat at the end of a row.

February 15, 2007, however, was a day that I found myself completely displaced. I have no idea why my seat was taken by the time I managed to drag a very weary body and soul into class, but it was. And so were all the seats around it. I think it may have been visitation day at the divinity school. So I had to sit somewhere really weird—near the middle of the class or something—and it was horrible—because all I wanted to do that day was disappear.

I had a really bad day that day. If you remember a day seven and a half years later, then you know it was a really bad day. I remember standing in the bathroom after getting to divinity school from elementary school work, wanting desperately to go home and sleep, but knowing that I needed to go to class. I needed to go to class not because of anything special but because going to class is what I did. I only missed one class during my entire under-graduate career, and if I missed a class during my divinity school career then it was because I had mono.

I am a people-pleaser.
Students going to and participating in class is pleasing to (most) professors.
So I went to class.
I always went to class.
But I almost skipped class that day.
And if I had, then I would have made one of the biggest mistakes of my life—
which would have been fitting on February 15, 2007—
but instead, that class became one of the biggest blessings of my life.

“I believe that as God is forming us from golem, God holds us to God’s chest and whispers into our ear who God desires us to be. Once we are born, the world begins telling us who it wants us to be. Family. Friends. Society. The church. So many voices tell us who to be. They wage battles within us, trying to form us into their image. But I think that our life’s journey is learn to hear through those outside voices and into the voice of God—the voice that once whispered to us who we were created us to be. This is perfection—being exactly who God desires—and Jesus was the only person ever to reach perfection—the only person ever to live into the fullness of who he was created to be—despite all that the world tried to make him.”

As my professor spoke that day, I sat in a strange seat surrounded by strange people and wept.
It was as if he was speaking those words directly to me and
I was being held against God’s chest as he did.
It was also as if God were telling me,
“I created you.
I believe in you.
I’ve got you.
Even when all else fails.
You are not who they tell you that you are.
You have failed but you are not a failure.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Always.”

That moment forever changed my view of God, life, and self.
And to think I almost missed it.
And that it happened in the wrong seat...

Thank you, Dr. Brock, for allowing God to use you to change me.

A Music Making, Word Collecting, Hair Farmer

I am a hair farmer and collector of words.
Growing and gleaning.
Waiting and acting.
Giving and receiving.
Encouraging and being encouraged.
I am a “music maker and dreamer of dreams.
A mover and shaker of the world forever it seems.”

Who are you, dear reader?
Dear, wonderful child of God?