All I need...

 On a recent trip to Walmart, I walked the aisles in a stunned, bewildered trance. Actually, this has happened before. This time though, it wasn't from pregnancy or post-par-tum exhaustion. I could not blame the haze of seminary finals. The shoppers remained relatively tame (even the ones riding in my cart), so I can't even say I suffered there either. No, this time, as I walked through the crowded shelves, looking for Roll-backs on necessary items, I began to make a mental list of all the things that promised to make me better...  Lots of products claim to make me better, or more than my everyday self.

Diapers and wipes that would make me a gentler mom.

Cleaners that would make me a better housekeeper.

Shampoo that promise to volumize my hair. (Volumize? What does that mean, exactly... Can your hair go up to 11?)

Food that would make me more energized.

Lotions that would make me more youthful.

Everywhere I looked things assured me that I needed them to make me more.... skinny, strong, beautiful, fun, alert, smart, resourceful... Fill in the blank. Everyday, we are bombarded with the question, “Are we ____________ enough to face this life?”

In fact, Time magazine, garnered a firestorm of controversy when it cut straight to the chase and came out with the cover story, “Are you mom ENOUGH?” Add some provocative photos just for good measure; sit back and watch the arguments unfold. The question hits a nerve because it's one we all wrestle with. Mom...dad...man... woman...professional, whatever... We all wonder are we ENOUGH?

The questions we wonder about in Walmart don't disappear within the walls of the church.

Back my college days, I ran with a group of ladies known as the WOW group. We, the Women of the Word, met oh-so-very-often for Bible Study, accountability, prayer, and service. That “Proverbs 31 Women” was our ideal, and in some sense, our goal. I remember thinking loudly, but only to myself, in that place of deep insecurity that I swore never to admit to another human soul: “I do not think I will ever live up to all that.” That picture of the ever elusive Woman of valor, and charity and ultimate virtue became a tool that mocked and taunted me. Even the scriptures that I cherish seemed to whisper “not enough”.

Is there a spiritual wonder supplement I can take for that; maybe something meant to maximize my spiritual potential? Oh, how I wanted, and needed, to be ENOUGH to pursue the things God was placing in my heart those days, and even today. I am not. Yes, you read that right. I am not enough.

When bad news hits like a freight train derailed at top speed, I am not enough. When depression sits around my heart like a stubborn thick fog, I am not enough. When the children are behaving like crazed maniacs and the hope of true adult conversation around a meal that does not involve frozen fish sticks looms to distant to be considered a reality, I am not enough. When things are going really well, and the house is full of laughter and praises, I am still not enough. Weather or not anyone sees everything that I do, I am not enough. When things are going as perfectly as they can this side of heaven, I am not enough. And when life is hard, no matter how much I try, I am not enough.

Because it is His grace that is sufficient. It is His grace that is enough. His power is made perfect in my weakness. The power of the One who created the universe is made perfect when I can say to Him: “I will never be enough without You. I cannot and will not do this without You. I am created to need You. You are my portion and You are ENOUGH.”

That is a foreign cry in this Do-it-Yourself loving, self-improvement soaked, John Wayne echoing American culture. All we want is a plan, and the fortitude to pull ourselves up. We want to use that sharpie check everything off the list. Neat. Clean. Tidy. Self-Reliant. And a little more empty than we would like to admit.

I have revisited that Proverbs 31 woman that we studied for so long years ago. Her reflection has changed a bit over the years. She still stands, as inspiring veracious as ever before. But I no longer read her tribute as a check-list. Instead, I hear it as intended: a poem or a song celebrating what God can do for those who set every aspect of their life and heart before His Light. Eschet Chayil (the Woman of Valor) didn't get there on her own. She got there being brave enough to utter that dissonant cry of relationship, and reliance of God.

See, there is another character in the Biblical story to who gets the Eschet Chayil title. We see it again in Ruth. Ruth, however, exemplifies the polar opposite of the life we see in Proverbs. All the details are different. Ruth is a childless widow, dirt poor, and from the “wrong kind” of family. Yet she shares the title with the woman who is an uber- sucessful domestic homemaker/businesswomen who has every duck in a row, every t crossed, and everything all together.

Proverbs 31:25 says she could “laugh at the days to come” (love that...) She does not laugh because she trusts in story book endings, even if she got them. She does not laugh because she has it all together. She laughs because she knows the Lord has never failed anyone's cry of desperate reliance. She laughs because she knows the Lord is always enough.