Haven't you had enough?
Enough is enough!
Do we have enough?
Did you bring enough for everyone?
Am I (good-attractive-rich-happy-fill in the blank) enough?
Enough. Such a simple word. Such a powerful, emotionally-charged word.
The two American generations immediately before mine lived through economic and social conditions where large swaths of people actually did not have enough. My maternal grandmother Mildred, born in 1916, came through the Depression as a little girl in rural southern Appalachia and most certainly did not have enough. By the time WWII rolled around, she'd paid her own way and pushed herself through business school and into a lifelong career as a legal/political secretary. She was, by God, going to make sure she had enough.
My mother Linda fared somewhat better; while she grew up in the same rural community as her own mother, Mildred would regularly send checks to my great-aunt Ruthie who was charged with raising Linda. My maternal grandfather was mostly a phantom; he was away doing construction in Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps for several years and was not part of Linda's life other than a random letter or two. So - while my mother may have had plenty of fried okra and pretty homemade skirts, she did not have enough love, nurturing or attention from either of her parents.
The result was an insatiable need - a demand - for the affections of others, be it her high school boyfriends or her husband (my dad) or her kids. And no matter how much she was loved, it was never enough. Her depression and subsequently diagnosed schizophrenia amplified her craving for affection beyond imagination. We could never quite love her or attend to her enough.
I always felt like if I could just do or be enough for her, then Linda would be happy. But my hair wasn't clean enough and my short stories weren't funny enough and in fairly short order I was not well-behaved enough to merit approval. As a pissed-off teenager, I decided she could shove her approval and I proceeded to dramatically and noisily not care about being good enough.
I love my dad - always have and always will - but he finally had to escape and find happiness elsewhere. There is no longer bitterness for me in this part of the story... but at the time, I thought it had something to do with me not being enough. Kids are funny that way. He got a new wife and family, and I was livid with everyone involved for decades. Resentment aside, for years I harbored a quietly narcissistic suspicion that it all happened because I wasn't enough. (Yes, I've since had excellent therapy.)
A mentally-ill single mother with two kids, Linda feared "not enough" more than anything. I can't talk about it much without getting a little dizzy, but suffice to say that the reality show "Hoarders" is precisely how my sister and I spent our childhood. God knows we had enough critters and clothes and Cokes and cigarettes and stuffed animals and books and prescription meds. But we often didn't have enough money for school supplies, income tax payments or water heater repairs.
Enough of the autobio. I just wanted to provide a backdrop
for my relationship with this business of enough.
Enough infers a comparative quantitative analysis of what we have against what we need. Interestingly, what we have is generally fact-based, yet what we need is often subjective and sometimes even predicated on mood. Impulsivity and addictions distort wants into needs - be it food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, etc. Often I will tell myself I need something when the truth is I just want it.
I think most of us struggle with some form of enough-ness. Good enough, healthy enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, rich enough, smart enough, kind enough, happy enough, loved enough, yada yada yada. When, exactly, is enough ENOUGH?
I regularly wrestle my own enough-ness (actually my perceived lack thereof). Am I doing enough to be a good wife and mother? Am I serving my Creator and my fellow man enough? Am I working hard enough at my job? Am I fun enough, kind enough, generous enough? I know I don't get enough exercise or sleep, and there are never enough hours in a day for me to do everything I think I should.
The doctrine of grace informs me that I can never be good enough to earn God's love or forgiveness. This initially feels like bad news, sort of like "then why bother with God at all". But, for me anyway, on the heels of that flippancy comes the conviction that He bothered to create me in the first place and all that's asked of me in return is... me. If I give Him me, then I get His grace. And I don't even have to shine myself up or be "good enough", because that's an impossibility anyway.
In his second letter to the members of the church in Corinth, Paul imparts a pearl of faith wisdom that stills the storm of "not enough"-ness for me. And with one single word, housed within a sentence of hope that I believe to be a statement of fact, I am - in fact - enough.
But the Lord said, "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness". (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Hmmm. Sufficient. Sufficient. SUFFICIENT!!
Sufficient means "adequate for the purpose; enough". (dictionary.com) By virtue of God's grace and limitless love, I am enough. I have enough. I may not have or be everything I want, but I absolutely am and have everything I need. It is enough.
Not on my own, mind you - left to my own devices, I will always battle a nagging sense of not enough-ness.
But, placing my 50-year-old hand in His and glancing backwards down the path that brought us to this point in time, I can see that I've always had - and been - ENOUGH already.
