2015, the year of enough

song of moses

"But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head." Psalm 3:3

I've hit some rock bottoms in 2014.  Rock bottoms in the way that I see myself and the way that I see the Lord.  It's taken hard conversations on more than one occasion for me to be reminded that I am not broken and that I am not in need in fixing.  

The celebrator in me loves New Years.  The celebrator in me loves anything that is a call to rejoice in something.  I love the call to celebrate any and everything.  With that said, I definitely have a heart for New Years and for new things.

As I read back over my words for 2014 and the things that I declared over the year, I was filled with the same type of feeling of not knowing exactly what to say stepping into 2015.

2014 was a good year.  A long one, a really long one, but a good one.  It trumped 2013 by a long shot because that year sucked so bad.  2014 was full of laughs and tears and depression and long mornings spent on cozy couches and forgotten promises and sweet, new friends and comforting hugs from old ones and cups and cups of coffee and lots of sadness.  Significantly, 2014 was blanketed in an overwhelming surrounding that Jesus is bigger and better than my wildest dreams.  

He showed me grace.  He showed me joy.  He showed me what love, genuine love, looks like and what it doesn’t look like.  He showed me what prayer looks like.  He showed me how He is plenty.  He showed me how I am enough.   Overall, He showed me who He is.

As I started to pray for a word for 2015, there were a couple of things that I couldn’t seem to escape.  These words have been common themes throughout my journey with Jesus and throughout the last couple of seasons that my heart seems to be entangled with.  Words like grace (my favorite word ever), words like rest (boy, do I need it), words like peace, words like love.

All of those words are great; seriously, they’re some of my favorite things ever.  But every time I considered different words that I would want (and really, the Lord would want) to mark the next year of my life, one simple word kept coming back up:

enough

That’s it.  2015 in one six-letter word.  Enough. 

As I came out of the season that I had been in for the last six months or so, I had to do a lot of chanting over myself.  I had to do a lot of reminding myself that I am enough because Christ says I am.  Christ is enough and Christ is in me, therefore I am enough.  He will always be plenty.  I had to chant because most days, chanting was the sole thing that made me try - try in classes, try in relationships, try to speak to my anxiety. 

To my wonderful readers reading this, I'd like to pause for a moment to clear a thing or two up.  Whenever I blog, I usually get at least one response from the people that read it that feel bad for the way that I've felt.  Let me say that I don't write or talk about my feelings in order to break your hearts for me, haha.  I don't write to receive pity or hugs (though I'll always welcome hugs).  But I write genuinely and honestly because it helps me infinitely.  Therefore, if the words I say wreck you even a little be, I encourage you, in the same way, to always be honest with the hearts around you.  The way that we feel and the way that we are broken is a beautiful thing, so I encourage you, in a healthy way, to be real and to sort of break others.  We all have our molds and they can all be shattered.  I encourage you to tell your story and to shatter those molds.  With that said, these words are really real and I pray that they shake you a little bit.

Anyway.  As I look into the next year, that same idea remains, that idea of being enough because Christ is enough, but it has shifted a little – not only am I enough through Christ because of His sufficiency, but Christ is enough for me.  

When I feel depressed, I am saying that Christ is not enough.  When I feel overwhelmed, I am feeling that Christ is not enough.  When I get crushed over (seemingly) unfulfilled promises, I am choosing to see that Christ is not enough for me.

Yet, in the middle of what I feel is His lacking for me, He is preparing a rich harvest in my heart.  Until I choose to believe that He is enough for me, I will not reap the benefits of that glorious harvest.  Only since I have seen my worth have I been able to see that.

Because 2014 was such a roller coaster, at many points, I felt super insufficient.  Insufficient in my etsy shop, in my relationships, in my academic work, in the way that I loved others, in the way that I saw people, in the way that I worshipped, and literally, with my anxiety, in my own skin.  It took a really hard season (who knew that a boy breaking up with me would lead me to this?) for me to come to a place where I could say and really believe that I am enough.

What I’m getting at is that I want to declare 2015 the year that Christ is enough for me.  Even when I don't feel it, even when I can't see how, even when my heart gets broken and I'm not sure what comes next, even when I don’t want to have Him be enough for me because I'd rather sit, comfortably and unhappily, in my pit. 

I go into January begging the Lord to stir my heart for Him and Him alone.  Let me look at the sunshine and see Him.  Let me look at hands of those around me and see Him.  Let me look at the rain and the thunder and the mountains and see Him.  Let me see Him and His ability to be enough in all the things I do.  Let me yearn for Him.

Jesus, help me to choose contentment even when I’m mad and frustrated.  Help me to seek joy and to know that you are GOOD, always good.  Help me to remember that you are faithful and loving and kind and patient.  Help me to see that if all I have is You, I have abundantly more than I need.  Help my cup to overflow in the promise that you are enough and that you will always be enough.  You are my portion and you are plenty.  Help my heart to know that because I've done so well at not believing that.

Mark 1:34 says, “And he ordained twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach.”

so here’s to a new season.  here’s to new things, big new things.  here’s to new places to see, places to revisit (looking at you, Seattle; I’m coming back), new pictures to take, new friendships to encounter, new adventures to be had.  here’s to new declarations to be declared, new hearts to continue to be restored, and new words to softly speak or strongly shout.  here’s to the old and the new because the same God is in it all.  here’s to changing tides and rolling clouds and Jesus in the midst of it all.  here’s to thrift shops full of secret treasures just waiting to be found, here's to customers waiting to be encouraged, and here's to calligraphy words waiting to be written.  here's to Jesus being all around me, in the good and the bad, and to me being happy in that.  and here's to being with Jesus through every step.  Jesus, be enough for me.