Enough.  When you read that word what comes to mind?  “I’ve had enough”, “Enough already”, “I can’t do enough to help”, “There aren’t enough days in the week”, and “I don’t have enough time” are just some things I think of when I read that word.  I think about the times I’ve been overwhelmed or I’ve felt I’m letting others down.  Can you relate?

You see, I’ve felt incomplete at times or that I was missing a puzzle piece to me.  That incompleteness I saw as my own fault, a failure on my part.  I, myself, wasn’t enough.  But is that really the truth?  Are we created incomplete, flawed?  No, I wasn’t made to be that way and neither were you.  You might be saying to yourself, “I saw that answer coming” or shaking your head in agreement.  Let me ask you something though.  Do you REALLY believe that?  Do you know deep down in your most walled off, locked away self that you CAN be complete?

Here’s what I know.  I, you, each of us can have everything we need inside of us.  How can that be?  When we accept Jesus’ love and our inability to be enough on our own Jesus makes His home in us and we are complete.  Jesus uses people and circumstances around us, all those peaks and valleys, to help us discover all that He has created us to be.  Jesus will use anything, even a year like 2020, to His purpose.  What is that purpose?  To have us know, believe, feel just how much He loves us and how we are enough in His eyes, the only eyes that truly matter.

There have been times I’ve looked to other people or things to complete me like family, friends, a job.  Those feel like necessities which they are in a way.  We need relationships as we were not created to be alone.  We need a job to provide for ourselves.  However, my husband, children, friends don’t complete me.  My education or job doesn’t complete me.  Rather Jesus has used those people and those jobs to help me discover who I really am and what His purpose is for me.  Where I’ve felt I’m not enough ended up being an opportunity for Jesus to strengthen me or humble me with loving kindness.

Two sisters come to mind, Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42).  Jesus was spending time with them in Martha’s home.  Martha was flitting around cleaning this and prepping that.  Sister Mary was hanging out with Jesus having all the fun.  In a way you could say that Martha didn’t feel she was enough and blamed her sister for leaving her to carry the load.  Jesus reminds Martha she has a choice.  She can either see it as her not being enough or she can join Mary in learning about how she IS enough.

During their final night together, Jesus encourages His disciples telling them not to worry and that He is going to the Father to prepare a place for them.  Our friend Thomas asks where He is going so they can follow Him.  Jesus replies, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  Philip says simply, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” (John 14:1-8).  Sisters and brothers, to see the Father we need only to look for Jesus.  We find Jesus inside ourselves.  It is then we be enough.