It’s Friday night. All is silent. All is bright. Sitting in my yoga pants on my couch with the hubbie, football for background noise. The kids are sleeping, the kitchen’s clean, and no one has to set an alarm to get up in the morning. After a long, busy December week, there’s nothing better than this quiet night at home.

The thing about quiet nights in December is that you really, really appreciate them. As the frenzy cranks up notch after notch, these little pockets of silence become all the more precious. During this time of year, I have to find these little pockets. I need them to sort out the mass of paperwork in my head, the tangle of thoughts that start with what to get my mom for Christmas and end with me cleaning out the fridge. So much to do. So many people to think of. All the expectations to fulfill, the hopes to make happen. The everyday hustle and bustle covered in tangles of light strings and travel plans and precious family memories to make.

It’s the physical act of putting up trees, driving to stores, and coordinating events…but it’s all the emotions, too. As a mother and a wife, a friend and daughter and church member, I feel the emotional weight of tending my children’s tender hopes for Christmas, creating quiet spaces for them to rest, staying on the same page as my husband, supporting friendships, nurturing connections, and reaching out to those in need. Oh, and I’d like to have a few sweet Christmas-y memories and some fun, too.

Christmas is just such a big thing now. Almost a monster. It just keeps getting bigger and louder, too. So much so, that it’s hard to hear the silent night. It’s hard to feel the all is calm. It’s hard to cut through the trimmings and trappings and expectations and exhaustion to see the holy infant, so tender, so mild.

I’ve been coming down with a cold all week, not getting as much done as I need to, but it’s been the best thing. I’ve slowed down, made some choices, been forced to put down my expectations. Which is good. I have been forced to lay it all (expectations, to-do lists, and fear of not being enough) at the manger.

At first glance, laying my mess at Jesus’ manger does not seem like an appropriate gift. But, this gift of burdens, is actually a beautiful present for my King.

Lord, take my fear. Lord, here is my worry. Jesus, I’m giving you my hopelessness. Here is the problem I’ve been trying to work out on my own. Son of God, take these worldly expectations. Take my pride. Take it all, Jesus. It’s for you.

When I bring the gift of my burdens to Jesus, I am also giving him something else: my whole heart. God has always, always wanted his children to give him their burdens and fears and worries, the crippling idea that we have to do it all ourselves, and the pride that leads to hopelessness. He wants us to realize that in exchange for all this, he gives us peace, hope, joy, and a quiet, focused heart.

So let’s lay it down at the manger. Let’s bring him the gift of our burdens. And let’s sleep in that heavenly peace.

My daughter got in trouble tonight for yelling at her brother in the middle of bedtime devotion.

We had a little discussion, and then I told her to get into bed while I tucked in Ezra. Even though we talked it out and I had assured her of forgiveness, I could hear her weeping great dramatic sobs as I sang Ezra “Joy to the World” and gave him his good night cuddle.

Part of this drama, I knew, was because it’s Thursday night. And Thursday night around here is never pretty, because Campbell is dog-tired by Thursday night. When she gets tired, well, she’s like me: over-emotional and overwhelmed. Really, the only thing people like Campbell and I can do at this point is to tuck ourselves into bed and wait for morning.

But the other source of all this emotion is because Campbell has a tender conscience. Since she was very small, getting her to recognize her sin and to apologize is usually simple. Convincing her that all is forgiven and that she can move forward is sometimes a challenge.

After Ezra was tucked in, I made my way to Campbell’s room, where sobs and muffled groans and sad shudders were still coming from a big lump of blankets on Campbell’s bed. When I pulled back the comforter to reveal her matted hair and flushed face, I assured her, “Campbell it’s okay. I know you are sorry, and you are forgiven.”

To which she replied with renewed sobs, “I’m just not meant for this world, Mom.”

I knew exactly what she meant. I totally related. There are times when this life feels so terribly wrong. When I’m battling sin, disappointed with myself, or haunted by my mistakes, I’m ready to crawl out of my skin. When I hear more bad news, see those I love hurt, and watch the news, I’m terrified and I want out. As the world erupts in earthquakes and wars and famines and hate and riots on a regular basis, the world feels so foreign and scary to me.

This bedtime moment was such a wonderful opportunity to gather my daughter up in my arms and tell her that I totally agreed. We’re not meant for this world.

I’ve been thinking about this fact a lot lately, because it gives me comfort. In the midst of pain and frustration, in the midst of tragedy and defeat, it is the explanation. It is a truth as solid and firm as can be. This world ain’t it, my friend. Things here don’t make sense, because this world is a ruined place. It’s broken beyond repair. Its guarantees are pain and heartbreak and death. Jesus confirmed this when he walked on earth and said, “In the world you will have trouble.”

He told us where we do belong: heaven. A free gift through faith in him as Savior. This world ain’t it. Heaven is. All of this around us, everything that feels so wrong and foreign, is not our home.  All the times we cry out “I’m just not meant for this world,” we are speaking the truth. We are meant for heaven.

So while we walk on earth, while we are down here waiting for Jesus to come, don’t let your hearts be troubled. Don’t lose hope. This is all temporary, a short 70-80 year trip in the span of eternity. This isn’t all there is for us. We are meant for heaven, and when we get there, it’ll feel so right.

I won’t let my son open his Christmas presents, and it’s really chapping his hiney.

He knows they are in the house, because he’s seen the packages arrive on the doorstep from Amazon. He knows they are here, hidden just out of his five-year-old reach. The thought that he could be enjoying those gifts right now is maddening to him. He doesn’t care that opening them now would mean no presents on Christmas morning. He just wants the presents, and finds it absolutely ridiculous to have to wait to open a gift for the sake of a holiday. (We went through the same thing with his birthday presents).

My daughter, on the other hand, understands the meaning of anticipation. The counting down, the mystery of the hidden gifts, the savoring of the season…she’s old enough to understand that part of the fun is in the expectation of it all. The waiting, the hoping, the daydreaming about the feeling of opening those presents makes the enjoyment last for a month, not just the mad minute of unwrapping.

Advent is all about waiting. The whole Old Testament, from Eve to Elizabeth, is about the Jewish people waiting for the Messiah. It’s all about their hope, their expectation, their anticipation of the Savior who would bring light to the darkness, freedom to the prisoners, joy to the despairing.

Come to think of it, the whole New Testament is about waiting, too. After Jesus ascended into heaven, we’ve all been waiting for him to come back, to bring us from this dark world to the light of heaven.

So to sum things up, throughout the history of the world there have been maybe 33 years where we haven’t been waiting for Jesus: the 33 years he spent on earth. But can we even count those years? Even when he was here, most of the world didn’t recognize him as the promised Messiah.

When I think about how my children wait, long, pine, and beg for Christmas, it reminds me that I’m waiting, too. Their fervor for Christmas is a beautiful, in-my-face picture of what we’re all doing year-round. Being a believer means I’m a wait-er. Just like all the believers in the Bible, I’m constantly waiting for Jesus to come. I’m from a long, ancient line of waiters. It’s what we do this side of heaven.

So what do I do while I’m waiting? First, I remember that I’m waiting, because when I do it gives me perspective. This world isn’t the point, and that changes my attitude about a lot of things. Second, I remember that I’m waiting for a good reason. God put me here to be a waiter. There’s a reason for my existence at this time and at this place. He’s working it out for my good. And finally, God is making me wait here so that I can tell other people about him and his love.

Both of my children are excellent waiters, even if their styles are completely different. One is focused and unwavering, the other is hopeful and excited. I want all of those qualities when I’m waiting for Jesus. I want to wait with all the tenacity of my son, who constantly thinks about those Christmas gifts just beyond reach. I want to wait with joyful expectation like my daughter, who patiently trusts my promise to deliver the gifts Christmas morning.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that^h the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, whoⁱ have been called according to his purpose.” -Romans 8:22-28

My pastor said something that caught me off guard on Sunday. It was the first Sunday of Advent, and he was covering the usual bases about preparing to meet Jesus, because that’s what Advent means: Jesus is coming. He said that the best way to prepare to meet Jesus is to make sure you are nurturing your faith so that it is growing.

And then he said the thing that caught me off guard. He said that “a growing faith is a growing awareness of God in your life.”

I sat back in my pew for a minute. I had never heard the concept of faith put quite that way. That word, “awareness,” well, to be honest, it sounded pretty New Age-y and borderline woo-woo for my conservative Protestant ears. But it sure got me thinking about what it means to be “aware” of God.

I’m aware that he exists. I see evidence of a higher power all around me, in the beautiful order of nature, in the power of the hurricane, the beauty of a sunset, the miracle of new life. But I’m also aware of God because of the fear in my heart that wonders about all the wrong I’ve done. I’ve become aware of God through his Word, which describes him as not only powerful, but just and perfect.

And then I’ve learned that God isn’t just this all-powerful, demanding being. The Bible speaks of God as love. In a story almost too good to be true, the Bible describes in detail that Jesus came to die for me, that he took away all my sins. Because of what he did, the Bible says that heaven is mine.

My awareness of God has grown the more I learn about Him. Throughout my life, parents and friends and pastors have guided me deeper into his Word. They have used the Word to show me that Jesus listens to me, that the Holy Spirit guides my life, that the Father works out all things for my best, no matter what that best may be.

The more I read about God, the more aware I am of him in my life. As I’m reminded of God’s love, I see God not just as Almighty or Judge or Father or Savior, but as Friend, the one who’s always with me, walking right next to me, living in my heart.

The more and more aware I am of Jesus, the more and more real he becomes. And that’s faith, right? Not just being aware that God exists or judges right and wrong or listens, but that he loves and that he is present, that I have a real, tangible relationship with Him…Immanuel…the Word made Flesh. I am certain of his presence, I am aware of what is just beyond my sight.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

When I see Jesus for the first time with my own eyes, I want to recognize him. I know that I will, because I believe in him. But when he comes again, will that first glance be complete shock or will it simply be picking up the conversation we had the night before, as old, familiar friends?

“Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

The washer and dryer are humming across the house, in the laundry room off our kitchen. My Christmas tree sparkles in the corner of the living room, done up in navy blue and gold this year. As I look out my office window, I see the twinkle lights hung in our backyard. Upstairs, under my bed, the pile of purchased gifts is growing by the day. My Christmas cards are in the mail, making their way across the country. I will get them soon and will spend a couple hours tracking down addresses of friends who’ve moved this year, carefully printing their names on clean white envelopes with a fine-tipped marker. The Advent by Candlelight program is written for another year, and I’ve practiced for the church service I play for on the 14th. The plane tickets are bought, as are the gloves and hats and sweaters that we’ll wear for the time we spend in Wisconsin each year. My freezer is full of food to take us to the end of the month. The Advent calendar is hung.

I’d like to say that I’m ahead of the game, but I’m not. I’ve just barely starting thinking about preparing my heart. Although outwardly I’m ready, inwardly…well, that’s another story.

Two years ago I wrote a blog called A Different December. Every day from December 1st to December 25th, I wrote one post a day in preparation for Christmas. I want to do it again this year.

I know myself. I get so wrapped up in the decorating and the parties, the to-do lists and the shopping. I love getting ready for Christmas. It’s so much fun! It’s cozy! The looks on my kids faces! The joy of seeing family I haven’t seen for months! Winter break! Sometimes I sense myself loving all this stuff more than the baby in the manger. It’s difficult to admit that, but I know at times, it’s simply true.

I’m clearing a slot, and I’m lighting a candle. It’s time to prepare for my King, beginning with a prayer I prayed two years ago today:

Dear Savior,

As I enter a new Christmas season, I ask you to be with me. I am sorry for getting so wrapped up in the craziness and materialism of this time that I forget to prepare my heart for your coming. You came to save me from this crazed world, my sin, and the grasp of Satan. Since you came and died for me, I no longer live under these threats. I live as your child. Please help me to prepare my heart to receive you, my King. Thank you for your amazing love.

In Your Name, Amen.

My baby turns five tomorrow.

I just got back from his little birthday party at school. I brought juice boxes and ice cream, Avengers napkins and Spiderman balloons, and Ezra was tickled pink. I stuck five long, colorful birthday candles into his little plastic cup of ice cream and sang Happy Birthday with all his friends. Then I watched him pass out his goody bags to his buddies, so proud in his little blue polo shirt and gray uniform shorts. I took pictures of him with his teachers, and they took a picture of us. Before I left his classroom, he gave me a hug that said more than a million thank yous, his arms tight around my neck in an embrace that lasts twice as long as a usual Ezra hug.

I cried all the way home.

Time does funny things to you when you’re a mother. It drags on through late night feedings and fevers, through long afternoons when everyone’s waiting for daddy to get home. It speeds through the holidays and birthdays, the cozy days of family routine. Time makes you emotional and antsy, nostalgic and impatient, all depending on the day or the phase we’re going through at the moment.

But bring me to a birthday, and I’ll always say that time is going too fast. I look at my son and wonder how he is five, how he is in school, passing out treats to his friends, so grown-up and handling his own little life outside the walls of our home. I look at this little miracle walking around in front of me and still wonder: how did you come to be? How is it possible that you are mine?

Being a mother feels strange and new to me all the time, because my children are constantly growing and changing, on to the next thing. I tell my daughter regularly, “You can stop growing now. That’s enough.” To which she smiles at me in an incredibly perceptive way for a seven and a half year old, knowing I’m having a “moment” and indulges me with an extra squeeze. She’s got a little bit of mother in her already.

I don’t know if my husband and I will have any more children. It’s something I pray about all the time. Are we done? Or is there another on the way? Is this it? Is this the last five year old party I’ll have? Is this the last naptime and Sesame Street and plastic sippy cup? I try to peer into the future, unable to let go of the idea of having another child, unable to say, “Let’s try again!”

Being in this place and coming to a benchmark like five years old has me feeling sad, has me wondering and questioning and fearing, “Is this it?” So I sit here with a glass of wine, biting my lip, and whilst trying-to-be brave, listing things I’m grateful for right now:

1. My beautiful son. I’m so thankful for my Ezra, Ezzie, Mr. Ezra Pants, Tank, SpiderTank, Ez Fez, Underwear Man!, E-Z, Buzz, boy of a million nicknames. How do you say thank you when God gives you a son, a human who loves you unconditionally and calls you “mom,” and comes in every single morning, first thing, to cuddle? Who yells down the stairs every night after I tuck him in, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite! or the sharks! or the Ninja Turtles! or the spiders! or the snakes! or the Hulk! or the….” Who still hugs me in front of his classmates, is gleeful when I draw him my funny stick figure superheroes?

2. The opportunity to be a mother. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and probably the hardest thing I’ll ever do. It’s knocked me over a million times, been the impetus for many long, hot baths, and taught me more about love than anything else. The whole thing is a big messy miracle. Great gobs of grace and snot and laundry and sweet, sweet baby cheeks.

3. Time. It’s ticking, always passing. But it’s what we have, however long, and it’s a gift. The more I try to peer into the future, the more I learn the wisdom of staying right here, in the present. Celebrating the moments or just trying to breathe through them, one at a time. Right here is where I learn to sit still in the palm of God’s hand, sheltered by his love, comforted by his control. The intricacies of his timing are beyond my understanding, but looking back on the last five years, I see the perfection in the way his hand moves.

“I started writing when I was seven or eight. I was very shy and strange-looking, loved reading above everything else, weighed about forty pounds at the time, and was so tense that I walked around with my shoulders up to my ears, like Richard Nixon.” 

-Ann Lamott, Bird by Bird

If you saw me lately, you might mistake me for Richard Nixon.

Let’s just say I’m feeling overwhelmed. For the last few weeks, when someone has asked me how I’m doing, the only thing I want to say is “busy,” because it’s the only thing I can think about. The days are rushing over me, and I over them, like a slightly crazy, frazzled Richard Nixon in what I think are a pair of very cute pointy toe pumps.

The blood that is running through my veins is jumpy, my neck and shoulders are achy from the strain of hours in front of the keyboard, my jaw is set with the determination of a general about to attack. And my heart is beating too fast.

As long as I am complaining, let me give you the reasons I feel this way. I am a mother with two children. My son is having a hard time right now, and we’re trying to make it through with love and discipline and a crazy new diet to help with his allergies. This requires lots of cooking and large quantities of something called bone broth. I have a job, and I just popped the top off a whole can of worms there. I’m trying to keep up with this blog, the housework, the birthday parties, the bills, the homework. I am writing our Advent by Candlelight program. I’m also supposed to be a wife, and I don’t think I’m doing a very good job with that one. But I’ve let myself off the hook a little, because he’s busy, too, and hasn’t been around much lately. I’m trying to be a good friend and sister and daughter. All I really want to do is jump in the van and take a long drive up the coast to Maine. My daydream fantasies are of me alone in a cabin in the mountains with a wide front porch, a cozy sweater, a mug of coffee, a rocking chair, and absolute quiet for a few days. I fantasize about it.

I am constantly worried that there are not enough hours in the day. When I climb into bed, I have the funny feeling of deja vu, like I just cliimbed into bed ten minutes ago, when really it was 24 hours ago.

On Friday night, I lost it. I was with a friend, discussing something, and all of a sudden, I just fell apart. I had reached my saturation point, and the tears leaked out of me. Big, fat tears and lots and lots of words. It was a little bit horrifying, but she sat with me and said all the right things and cried along with me and we both came out laughing at how life is just plain hard and good, ugly and beautiful. On Saturday, my husband graciously took the kids to a volleyball game, and I spent four hours zoned out in front of a movie in my yoga pants.

I’m a crash-and-burn kind of girl. I can go for miles. “Fine. Fine. Fine!” “Yes. Yes. Yes!” and then suddenly, it’s totally not fine, and I find myself burned up. Fried crispy.

But this latest meltdown got me thinking about what I could change and what needed to stay the same. I will always be a mother. I’m keeping my job and the blog and my husband. I will continue to cook and clean and pay the bills and help at church. Life will continue to be busy.

But I decided that a few things have to change. Instead of always answering, “Busy!” I can say good, because when I stop to think about it, all this busy-ness is the result of so much goodness: my husband, our children, a fulfilling job working for a school I love, finally having some quiet time to write like I’ve always wanted, the use of a strong body to volunteer and do dishes and blow up balloons for a TMNT birthday party. Cowabunga, dude.

I can practice gratitude, just like I said I would this month. I can be thankful, because even though I don’t always think I have enough time, I do have hours. I have 24 hours every single day. These hours, no matter how busy, are a blessing. Every single hour is an opportunity to complain or to be grateful, to take up the calling before me or to begrudge it. And every hour is a chance to exercise my faith, whether that be praying to God for help or praising him for the opportunities in front of me.

Sometimes 24 hours seem like too many, sometimes those 24 hours don’t seem like enough. But 24 hours is what God gives me, one day at a time, as gift of his grace.

I Facetimed with my mom and dad a couple days ago, hedged in some conversation around my kids clamoring for the screen and making crazy faces and showing off their latest tricks and toys and missing teeth. It must be like watching a circus. But in between the shenanigans, mom and dad asked how I was. Coming from someone you love, “How are you?” can open large cans of worms.

I gave a stream of consciousness answer. “Good. Work is going well. The kids are good. Ryan is good.” And then I dug in a little deeper. “It’s busy, we’re all busy. Time is flying by. We are entrenched in the school year routine, our calendars runneth over. Now that I’m almost full time, it’s the kids and the house and the job and everything else, too.” I then I found the heart of what I wanted to say, “But I feel settled. This feels like home.”

There’s something so satisfying at getting to the heart of what you’re feeling, isn’t there? Even more satisfying is to have someone understand what you mean. My mom replied, “It’s like the Lincoln years.” I knew what she meant. Our Lincoln years were the years that my family lived in Nebraska. Those ten years were a sweet pocket of time when my sisters and I were growing up, all together under one roof with my mom and dad. The Lincoln years are my childhood, a time when I most definitely felt settled. My parents, in the heart of their parenting years, felt the grounding force of a routine focused on kids and school and holidays and summer vacations and the hum of family life. I hear the sweet satisfaction in their voices when they talk about those years, set between their own just-starting-out years and the years when we were all teenagers, upsetting the nest, and then college kids, jumping out of it.

After my teens and the searching years of my twenties and the series of moves and personal shake-ups of the past few years, I feel settled like I haven’t felt for a very long time. Where I am feels like home. I feel connected to the deep purpose of mothering and the satisfaction of a job that I love. My husband and I, after 10 years of marriage, have a bond and a routine and a history that makes the foundation of our family. We have good friends. We feel a sense of mission in our church and school. Now that we’ve been in Miami two years, familiarity surrounds us and this place has a worn-in feeling. All of this contributes to an overall feeling of settledness.

And for that, I’m grateful. Thank you, Lord, for bringing me to this time and this place.

What makes it all the sweeter, of course, is that life is ever-changing. So I’m treasuring this sweet pocket of stillness, these Lincoln-years, for as long as they last.

October is drawing to a close, and so is my time thinking about fear. I couldn’t be happier.

I thought this “month of fear” would be a soul-clearing exercise. It has been more soul-clenching than anything. The more I thought about this emotion, the more it haunted me. I think I might have been better off at the beginning of the month.

I avoided the keyboard these four weeks. It was a struggle to write a couple posts each week about getting around fear. The more I thought about fear, the less I wanted to write. I think I freaked myself out more than anything.

The topics on fear are limitless (fear of failure, fear of not being enough, fear of the future, fear of disaster, fear of temptation, fear of death, fear of sin, fear of the unknown, fear of what people think), but when it came down to it, I feel like the solutions could be summed up pretty easily.

You can say all you want about getting past fear, but I’ve found the best way is just to bulldoze through it as fast as you can, ripping a hole right through all the dangerous thoughts and finding a way out.

Way back at the beginning of the month I wrote about post about just saying “no” to fear, and it’s the closest I got to clarity, and I think I know why. Just saying “no” to fear is what God tells us about fear. (Duh).

• Deuteronomy 31:6: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 1 Chronicles 28:20: David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you.
• Isaiah 41:10: So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
• Isaiah 41:13: For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.
• Luke 1:30: But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.”
• Luke 2:10: But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
• John 14:27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
• Romans 8:15: For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “”Abba,” Father.”

In other words:

• Don’t dwell on fear.
• Don’t even give fear a foothold in your heart.
• Fear does no good.
• Thinking about it more doesn’t show you a way out.
• Fear isn’t productive, neither is worry.
• Fear takes our eyes of God, which is exactly why we should recognize that fear is temptation.

Sometimes we like to justify our fear, listing the reasons we should get to worry. Sometimes in the dark of night, we give into fear, letting it stir our minds into a frenzy. Sometimes we confuse care and concern with fear and worry. But as soon as we find that fear taking a hold in our hearts, we must say no to it.

God makes his directives pretty simple: Don’t fear. Don’t worry.

Spending this month looking at fear, searching my heart for all the things that make my heart clench up, wasn’t fun. I’m not sure it was even that beneficial. What I learned in the end was that I should replace all that fear-gazing with God-gazing. Switching my focus from my fears to my God is the one of the only things that helped me. Learning to say “no” to fear-filled thoughts was one of the only other things.

So let’s move on, shall we? Let’s move on to November, the month of gratitude, and in the words of Philippians 4:8, let’s usher in a new mantra, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”

I have to say, writing this last post about fear is the easiest one I’ve had to write all month. Good night!

“Fear can keep us up all night long, but faith makes one fine pillow.” -unknown author 

When I chose the theme of “fear” for October, I had this blog entry in mind.

I knew I would write it, because this fear has a place in my life every day for just about as long as I can remember. Some days, I’m better at fighting this fear. Some days, I give it into this fear all together. This fear is the fear of not enough.

The first layer of this fear comes from living in an attitude of scarcity, instead of gratitude. I look around and find things that I don’t have enough of. I don’t have enough money or I don’t have enough beauty or I don’t have enough respect or success or feathers in my cap. I don’t have enough patience or courage or energy. Everything I’m lacking stresses me out.

But these fears are just symptoms of a bigger fear. I often look to money and things and success and beauty to cover up a greater fear. I clutch at these things as ways to distract myself from this fear, to cover it up. This fear is the deep down one: I am not enough, and I don’t deserve love and acceptance.

I clutch at beauty to cover my inside ugliness. I clutch at success because admiration feels like love. I clutch at things because everyone seems to equate them with peace and a good life. Beauty and success and material things seem to be the answer to my “not enough.” In my clear thinking hours, I know that money and success and things “can’t buy me love,” but they seem to be enough to garner people’s respect and even their envy.

Somehow, somewhere down deep, I think that if I collect all of these glittering treasures I will have enough. That “enough” will also solve my inner craving to be enough. I’ve chased. I’ve tried. The problem is…I’m right.

I am not enough.

Confronting this fear, this reality every day is not fun. This realization brings with it fear and disappointment. But it also brings the truth. I am sinful. Always have been, always will be. I will always struggle with the feeling of not being enough because I am not enough. I am not worthy of love because I am a sinner.

Starting here at the bottom, in this harsh reality, is somewhere I start every day. Some days I run after things and beauty and money and success to cover up the knowledge that I’m not enough. But some days I remember the second half of the greatest truth I know.

Jesus is enough.

He is the only one who is enough. And through faith in his perfect life and death, I am also enough. What beautiful words. Although I am a sinner who struggles with her “not enough,” I rejoice in the fact that even though I’ll never be enough, I don’t have to be. Jesus gives me his perfection and his wholeness. He took my “not enough” to the cross with him.

God loved me even before I was enough. And he has brought beautiful words into my life. These words are perfection and sufficiency and completeness. Jesus is perfect. His grace is sufficient. He forgiveness is complete. How beautiful those words sound to my broken and lacking and imperfect life. He binds me up in Him. And that is the enough, that is the love, I’m always longing for.