Am I Enough?

It is a new season of life for me, as school is starting up and I have the time and the opportunity to stretch beyond the home I've tended for the past eight years.  I have had lots of time to take in, to learn, to read and study, to prepare, but now it's time to go and do and step in front.  And I'm scared.

The question that haunts me most is this: Am I enough?  Am I smart enough?  No matter how many times I ask myself the question, I always get the same answer.  No.  I'm not.  Sure, I'm intelligent, and I can take in and remember new information.  I know quite a bit about some things.  But what I know is just a small sliver of what is knowable.  I keep encountering people who know so much about things that I am completely ignorant of.  And then there is the unknowable.  The stuff that none of us know, nor will any of us in our lifetime.  Stephen Hawking, genius that he is, doesn't know if space and time are bendable; he only has an idea, a theory.  Albert Einstein, likewise, came up with a theory of relativity, which is unable to be proved or disproved with our finite human understanding.  None of us know how the world came to be, whether it was from a big bang or the creation of a supreme being, or if it has merely existed always.  There's no way we can know these things.  So when I come face to face with this question of am I smart enough, the answer is no.  Neither in terms of what can be known and what will forever be unknown.

In Christ alone, my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when strivings cease.
My comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ I stand.

But perhaps I can make up for my lack of knowledge by being good enough.  And so I examine all that I have ever done, all that has been done to me, the way I respond in times of stress, my motivations, my deepest, darkest secrets.  Once again, I have to answer in the negative.  I am not good enough.  Of course I'm not!  What person, in a moment of honesty, can claim to be good enough on their own?  There are times when I stumble upon the right thing, the moral thing, the kind thing, but there are far more times when I act out of my impatience, my insecurity, my selfishness.  There are some days when goodness seems to be the very opposite of what I am capable of.

In Christ alone, who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe;
This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones he came to save.
Til on that Cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
For every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live.

A new question springs up, especially lately, in the rooms that I have been in, the people I have sat across from, the places I have stood:  Am I qualified enough?  This is followed by hysterical laughter in my mind, and sometimes even escaping into an audible form.  Absolutely not!  I have NO qualifications for what I am doing.  I do not have the experience, the credentials, the titles that would qualify me for any of it.  I am a stay at home mother with an unused degree in International Relations and an unimpressive CV.  Almost anyone is more qualified than me, I think.

There in the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again!
And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am his and he is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ.

And so, as shallow and inconsequential as it may be, I wonder if I'm pretty enough?  Even though I don't know enough, don't have the goodness needed or the qualifications that are preferred, maybe I can convince people to listen to me and follow me if only I am pretty enough or charming enough to distract them from what I lack.  Human beauty is defined by the symmetry and striking contrast between features.  Consequently, I am not pretty enough.  My face is crooked, my eyes different sizes, my lips barely a shade darker than the skin surrounding them, my belly still soft from carrying children years ago, my hair both limp and frizzy.  No, my looks will not be my saving grace.

No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me.
From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand;
Til he returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Therefore, I am certain of the answer to my question.  I am not enough.  As it turns out, that is fine, and actually, quite expected.  I don't think any of us will ever find that we feel like enough on our own.  But I don't do this alone, these new ventures, these uncharted waters.  If you couldn't guess from the song lyrics, it is by following Jesus that my path presents itself.  So it isn't my abilities or self-sufficiency that need to be enough; it is HIS.  Jesus qualifies me, Jesus covers my blind spots and Jesus' goodness more than fills in where mine is lacking.  It is Jesus' sacrifice that saves me, Jesus who sits next to the throne of God in heaven and beckons me to take refuge in him.

The question then becomes not about what I possess but about where I stand.  Do I stand in the power of Christ?  Do I live as one who has been bought with his blood?  Do I accept the love that he so freely gives?  Do I shine a light, not so that others can see me, but so they can see him?

Camp

Eight years ago, I hopped in a van full of middle school kids and drove to a camp in Pennsylvania for a week of adventure.  I'm trying to remember now why exactly I agreed to go; I had spent the previous year leading a group of 6th grade girls in a Wednesday night small group/service experience, constantly wondering what actually qualified me to be in charge.  I loved them, don't get me wrong.  We had fun talking about Polly Pocket and High School Musical and why boys are gross (except sometimes not...?) while we visited sick people at the hospital and organized clothes at the Salvation Army.  We even had some deep, meaningful talks about baptism and prayer and what it means to follow Jesus.  Maybe the girls talked me into it, telling me about all the fun stuff we would do.  Maybe the youth pastor really needed another woman to chaperone.  Maybe I thought I would have fun, remembering my own time at summer camp on the cusp of adolescence.  We arrived, settled into our dorms, met the camp staff, and had a meal together.  It wasn't until the next morning that I realized what the week would really be.  It was way more than campfire discussions and silly games, trust falls and hiking in the woods.  It was an Adventure Camp with a thousand foot zip line and high ropes course and mountain biking and white water rafting, each morning and afternoon a different extreme activity planned.  And I was supposed to lead.  And participate.  And I am deathly afraid of heights.

  

Do you see those two young girls working their way up the rock wall?  Do you understand how high it was?  As I stood on the ground, I knew I couldn't just be a spectator.  If I was going to lead, I needed to strap into a harness and give it my best shot.

 

This is Bob (the other adult leader of our group, and father of half of the girls we brought) and myself making our way up the wall.  I included this photo partly because of how fabulous my backside looks...I like to pretend it still looks that way, that the past almost-decade and children haven't changed it one bit, and since its my back, I can believe this pretty easily.  I climbed that wall, and constantly looked down.  I saw how far away the ground became; it was hot and the stress and exertion were making me sweat.  I wanted to give up, I didn't care about reaching the top.  And then I heard from below, sweet little Allison (pictured above in purple) yell out, "Keep going Rachel!  You're almost there!"  And I finally looked up, ahead, and realized she was right.  I only had to make my way up a few more feet and I could say I DID IT.  I could go to dinner with bragging rights and maybe even the respect of my girls, many of whom did not reach the top that day.  And so I kept at it, and I made it.  And that night I told Allison how her voice carried up to me, how her encouragement was the push I needed to finish.

 

 

 Here is another of our "fun-tivities".  Bob is standing at the base of a tree with the dude who hooked us into our harnesses and led us around in the woods.  I can't remember his name, probably because I spent the whole week trying to get the girls to nickname him "Hanson" because he resembled Taylor Hanson.  They just got confused, thinking I was saying "handsome", and I realized they didn't know who Hanson was.  I'm old.  Anyway, if you look up, and I mean UP above Bob, you can see a little perch in the tree.  This time, we climbed the tree, using hooks that were attached to the trunk, and jumped off the perch in an attempt to grab a trapeze bar that is suspended like five feet away. 

This is me, pretending not to be terrified.  Seeing the faces of 8 girls looking up at me, some cheering, some laughing, and that trapeze bar seeming a million miles away.  In the end, I just jumped off rather than turn into Gregory Peck in Vertigo; how could I not, when the girls each took their turn, completely trusting that harness to ease their return to earth.

Here I am again, swinging through the trees, the girls and Bob on the other end of the rope that kept me in the air.

 See that platform?  Yeah, the next day, we each climbed up the tree, strapped into a harness, and went down the thousand foot zip line.  That was the hardest activity for me, even though I had seen many of our group climb, jump, and zip to the bottom of the hill safely.  I just couldn't make my brain believe that I wouldn't come crashing down and break every limb of my body.  I don't know if it was a good experience for the girls to see a 24 year old woman crying

Before white water rafting

I still remember each day of camp, nearly 8 years later.  The girls are high school graduates, off at college and working, falling in love and so very different from the people they were during that week.  In many ways, I'm different too.  The week after I got back, I peed on a stick and found out I would become a mom.  Now there are four little people who call me that.  I no longer lead a group of teenage girls.  Recently, my husband and I have been given the task of leading other adults at our church.  It feels a lot like that zip line.  I don't see how we won't crash and make a mess of things.  But when I think back to that week, I realize that was when I first became a leader.  That was when I spoke and people listened.  I climbed and young girls followed.  I was aware that I was only a few steps ahead of them on the journey of life.  When I look at other adults, I think probably I am a few steps behind everyone else.  And yet, they call me a leader.