What "Enough" Looks Like Lately

My small group started a new book for this Fall. I love my group, I love the ladies in it, and I love the community that I've found through this group... but I was a little uncertain about the book, to be honest.

I can be a "book snob" when it comes to small groups or book clubs. I like reading things that are a little outside the box- when there's a book that everyone is reading and everyone recommends, the popularity actually turns me away from it.

So when it was announced that we'd be reading a book that I'd heard a lot about, that a bunch of people have said "changed their lives," a book that many people have told me that I should read... I thought, Oh no... I'm gonna hate this. But I love my group, and I trust them, so even though I was a little hesitant, I got the book.




A couple of months ago, I came up with a word for 2014. Different from a resolution, this one word was supposed to help me focus on a theme, a topic that I wanted to improve upon for the year. I chose the word "Enough." I was really struggling with feeling like I'm not enough just the way I am.

But then, as things do over the course of a year, things changed.

Feeling like I'm not enough wasn't the struggle anymore, so much. Nope.

As the months went on and it became clearer that we will struggle to have children, I became less concerned about being enough, and more certain that I didn't have enough. I don't have enough life in my home, I don't have a healthy enough system to allow a pregnancy, I don't have enough time.

Deep in the recesses of my heart, a whisper of doubt started to erode my soul, to steal my joy, to make me ungrateful.

God doesn't love me enough.

And while I try to fight back against that whisper, tried to focus on the good and drown out that slippery voice, it lingers. It's a thorn that festers and tears at the fabric of my life.



I started reading the book for small group last week. I was sitting on the couch, reading Chapter One for our Monday small group meeting, and Zeke sat on the couch next to me on Craigslist. (Is your husband a Craigslist junkie? Mine has been looking for goats recently. I have no idea.)

Anyway. I started reading through the chapter, and came across this line:

"Like a rash that wears through our days, our sight becomes peppered with black voids. Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn't: holes, lack, deficiency."

I burst into tears. (And made poor Zeke the goat-finder a very confused man.)

Because that's what I've been dealing with. That's what I've been feeling. Those big black holes in my vision are stealing my joy, are making me feel like God doesn't love me enough.

And she put it so perfectly into words. She took my hurt and the stuff I'm struggling with and she named it, made me feel like she understood and wanted to help- that she'd figured out how to heal those holes a little bit.

That's what "Enough" has looked like for me, lately. It's not about me anymore, no. It's about the fact that God has so richly blessed me, given me such good gifts- so much more than enough. He's more than enough. I'm learning (slowly learning) to see that again.

(If you're curious, this is the book my group is reading. I can't put it down. Seriously.)

How are you doing with your resolutions? Throughout this year, have they morphed like mine has?

This post is linked with Amateur Nester.