What's Below the Surface.

The past month or so has found me in an unusual season. Deep within me has been a spirit of unrest, which would on occasion and with increasing frequency burst forth in sporadic eruptions. Initially it was easy to attribute my disquieted soul to a number of believable alibis; the emotion and busyness of our first holiday season away from home, a hectic travel schedule, the six-month mark of living in a new culture and the emotional wear that can induce. These each could be cause for significant spiritual and emotional unrest, right?

However, I became more and more aware that the frustration and source of angst wasn’t around me, it was within me.  And like any good western pre-millennial, I began to address the symptoms with the quickest remedies possible. Frustrated with language? Study harder. Feeling disconnected? Have more people over. Feeling unbalanced? Work out/cook/read/clean more. These would briefly abate the tide of questions welling up within me, but no amount of study, cultural engagement or sweat could quell the coming surge.

After several days of emotional fragility, externalizing with a dear friend and my by now battered husband, I decided to face what was inside me. And mercy, is the depths of my soul a frightening place to hold up to any mirror. For much of my life, it has been easy to answer the questions that lie within us all by what was around me. Am I good enough? Of course, look at this list of accomplishments. Am I lovable? Clearly, Class Favorites always are. Do I have purpose? Absolutely! Just look at your planner!

But in a new world where the false comforts I have clung to for years are stripped away, I have found myself coming up short on answers to quiet the voices in my head.  In my flesh, I have created expectations for the pure sport of attempting my usual ability to exceed them. It has seemed that in almost every area of my life here, according to the lens that I have so poorly fashioned, I simply am not enough. I could run down the litany of ways in which I have wrestled to this realization, but we all have our own lists. Some of us allow others to form the image of what we should be, or if you’re like me, you inherit the fallacy of being superhuman and spend your life trying to prove that you are.

But what I am clinging to, hoping for, and risking the depths of my belief on, is that He is enough. Within me, for me, and around me - He is truly enough. I think for me to really, deeply know this, I had to come to a point where I could see, touch, and taste the bitterness of my own inadequacy. The questions and doubts finally boiled over, and I was swept up in the storm of my own undoing. But in the midst of it all, His light has dawned bright and clear again – guiding me to the firmness of His horizon. I know that while I cannot, am not, and will not be so many things, I am firmly His. I am setting my heart, life, hope, and purpose solely on Him.

All I have to offer today is Him. Simply, completely, Him. My flesh wishes I could point to my language, confidence, or accomplishments here as an offering to validate who I am or that I am enough by my own or anyone elses' standards. But I can’t, and I’m believing that this is the best place I could be. Rebuilding the story of who I am, built not by my own hands, but as He sees fit to form me. Shaping me into something more beautiful, more accurately depicting of His grace and goodness. 

What this will look like tomorrow or the next day I have no idea. I have no outline, no five-step plan to rehabilitate yourself from the idol of expectations. But what I do know is that trying to quantify success or progress has become a twisted game for me, so I want nothing else than for each day to be found fully with Him. Trusting that after I know myself in Him, He will tenderly guide my steps. He is it. He is all. He must be everything.

Jesus, give me the courage to live in this. Amen.