"now am I enough?"

“Now am I enough?”

This is the question I’ve felt the Lord ask me over & over again the past few weeks.

These times are weird. It’s hard to put words to the feelings, changes, and circumstances we are all dealing with right now.

The other day I told some friends that so far, quarantine has felt like a rollercoaster for me. One day I feel joyful, content, satisfied, surrounded by the Spirit, and am able to clearly see the Lord at work. But then other days, I find myself feeling unmotivated, worried about the future, tired, wrestling with the Lord as to what exactly His plan is in all of this, and wanting this whole thing to be over as soon as possible. This is me and maybe you feel this way too? At least I can tell you you’re not alone.

Although I have seen a lot of goodness and beautiful things come from this time of quarantine, there are still a lot of other feelings I’ve found myself processing through and questions I’ve sat with before the Lord, as I search for peace.

In addition to these confused thoughts, at the beginning of quarantine I couldn't stop thinking about all the things that I felt had been “taken” from me. My friends, the rest of my semester at school, my church, my job and income, the ability to go places, I can’t even watch the sunset at the beach! It seemed like all the things I found joy in had been stripped away - too quickly for me to even process what was all happening. I think that’s one reason why some of us have struggled with feeling so many different types of emotions. Everything happened quick and lots of change occurred. Change can sometimes take a toll on us and it makes sense why we may feel shaken up and thrown around a bit.

For about two weeks, I was so caught up on all these things that I felt were taken from me. Then one day, a day when quarantine felt lonely & not so fun, I was asking the Lord to just give me something to cheer me up a bit, a tidbit of hope. That’s when it hit me. All the things I felt were “taken from me”, were things I relied on to bring me joy. Don’t get me wrong - all those things I love, and they’re fun, and they make life exciting, but I realized these things are what I look to, to fill me with happiness. Anytime I get in a little bit of a funk or have a rough day, I’m quick to turn to friends who I love or places that bring me excitement and remind me how much I love life. There’s nothing wrong with this and it always seems to help, but as I sat in my room thinking of all the things I’ve “lost” in the past month … I heard the Lord ask me that question. “Now am I enough?”

And that’s the question I’ve been letting penetrate and sink into my soul. Alone, God is enough for me. There is nothing else in the world I need to bring me any added joy. God is my provider. He’s caring for me during this time. He sees the areas my heart is hurting for the world and wants to sit with me in that. He is here for me. He has not left my side. I believe God’s saying to me (and maybe all of us) “hey, now that there are no distractions, are you okay with it being just you and Me?”

So far, in the year of 2020, there’s been a phrase I’ve repeated over and over to myself. “Just me and You Jesus, just me and You.” This whole time I’ve been reminding myself of this truth, but it wasn’t until quarantine that I finally received the opportunity to practice this intentionally. Who knew that after saying this phrase a million times, I’d really come to a place in life that may be the most secluded season of life I’ll ever get the chance to experience. I’m letting myself find joy in this. Joy in the fact that God truly is enough for me.

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One more fun thing I want to share with y’all.

I started reading Job not too long ago and let me tell you...this book is blowinggg my mind. I’ve never read the entirety of Job before, but boy has it got me hyped. To give a quick summary, Satan comes to the Lord with the intent of testing one of His followers. The Lord tells Satan that His servant Job is like, “no one else on earth...a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil” (Job 1:8). Satan challenges the Lord telling Him to, “stretch out [His] hand and strike everything [Job] owns” for Satan believes that after that, Job will “surely curse [God] to [His] face” (Job 1:11). The Lord tells Satan that everything that Job owns is in his power because the Lord is confident in Job’s faith. Soon after this, Satan (in one day!) takes away Job’s oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, servants, house, and even his own sons and daughters. {{Note to add: At the beginning of Job we are told that Job was the greatest man among all the people of the east and he had 7 sons, 3 daughters, a total of 11,000 animals, and a very large number of servants.]] So knowing this, we can see that Job lost everything. Satan thinks this will work, but even after all of this, Job responds by saying, “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Having failed, Satan decides to test Job a second time, and covers his body in boils. Job finds himself facing physical pain and a battle within his mind and soul. Yet, Job does not curse God. He is angry, he’s mad, he’s asking God why (3:11-23), he doesn’t understand His plan, he’s lost everything that belonged to him, but he does not lose faith.

As I was reading this, I thought, “could I respond like Job in a circumstance like that?”

For chapters after this, Job pleads to God, unable to understand why He has put him in this place, knowing he did nothing wrong. These chapters display Job in the greatest sense of pain he has ever experienced and reveal the feelings he went through in this very dark time. Reading it, it’s a little heavy to be honest. But I also felt a sense of comfort knowing that Job, (someone so long ago & someone who God considered a great man of faith) questioned God, had a difficult time seeing the full picture, felt anger towards God, and spoke honestly to Him. However, even from a place of misery, Job still does not curse God’s name.

I started reading Job in the midst of this whole realization of me feeling like things had been taken from me and whether or not I was truly in a place of God being enough for me. I read these chapters in awe because I felt like the Lord was using Job as an example for me. Job lost everything, but he still blessed the Lord.

Last thing, in Job 3:23 Job says that God has “hedged” him in. Job feels trapped. This feeling seems valid, considering his circumstance. BUT in Job 1:10 Satan says to the Lord, “haven’t you placed a hedge around him”. Satan saw God’s hedge as a protection...yes, even Satan saw this. Job finds this hedge as a restriction because that’s what it seems to him, but to God, it is actually His way of protecting Job. Hmm makes me think of feeling trapped and restricted in maybe something like a quarantine...something to think about ;) Job couldn’t see it, but God allowed him to continue on to teach us a lesson of reliance on God and (spoiler alert), after all of this, at the end of the book of Job, God restores him. He “restores his fortunes and doubled his previous possessions. He blesses the last part of Job’s life more than the first” (Job 42:10&12).

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My sweet friend Alli, shared a song with me the other day called “No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus” by Steffany Gretzinger. A line in the song says, “You’re still enough for me” and the second I heard it my heart swelled. Yes, Jesus, You are still enough for me. It gets better. Another line in the song says “let it be known, in You alone, my joy was found”. At that very moment I felt like all the things I needed to proclaim were beautifully sewn together into a song for me. A song for me to sing over my life and the truth I needed to declare to Jesus.

I don’t want to make it sound like I got this all figured out in the past week. That is not true yet. But this question has been helpful. “Am I enough?”

Waiting in the unknown, not surrounded by the people you’re usually surrounded by, kept from the typical schedule of your everyday life..these things can seem scary, but God does not create fear or anxiousness. He is a God of peace, love, comfort, hope, and freedom, wanting you to accept that He alone is enough.

For everyone reading this, I am praying for you. You are loved during this crazy time.

xoxo,

b.