When Limits Make Us Free

Such as I have give I Thee. 
—Old Sunday School song

Because we have such a hope, we are very bold. 
—The Apostle Paul, letter to the ancient Corinthian church

Basically, it seems to me that there’s never enough. Never enough time, never enough money, never enough time with friends, never enough cookies. Sometimes it’s hard not to focus on what is lacking, rather than on what is present. I think I start to see everything in my life as either a drain or a resource. While important to identify life-giving activities and pursuits, as well as what depletes us, it can also turn into a very self-centered mind-set. How do we balance what we have with what comes our way? How do we not let everything and anything become weights that make us look constantly inward? How do we make what we have into enough? 

Maybe what I really feel is that I’m not enough. I’m not enough for all the things demanded of me. I’m not enough for all the things I expect from myself. Even though fibromyalgia has made me let go of a lot of expectations from myself, there’s still so many things I would like to see myself do and accomplish. I’m not even talking about the Book I’m going to write to someday, or travel all around the globe. I would like to be able to hike a mile without a break or feeling like I’m going to die. I would like to be able to make dinner consecutive nights in a row. I would like to be able to go to church again on Sundays. Just a lot of little things that add up to big things in my head. 

What I’m finally realizing though, in the middle of all my yearnings and desires to do more, to be more, is that it’s good to not be enough. It’s actually freeing being able to say I am not enough. This life is too much sometimes, and I just can’t do it all. Sometimes, most times, I can’t even do the little things. 

Here’s why it’s ok: Not being enough, not having what it takes, not being able to pull myself up by my bootstraps, not being able to reach for the moon because I’m tired and it’s too far away, makes me see how much I need others. How much I need Jesus. How much I need to ask for help, for support, for ideas, for comfort. How much I need to pray and be open and vulnerable and honest. With myself, with others, with God. It takes guts, I think, to look in the mirror and say, while I’m not enough, I’m actually ok. In the middle of my not-enoughness, I will find that that the opposite is true. What I thought was being-enough, was actually impossible. The paradox is admitting that when we are utterly incapable of doing life by ourselves, we will learn how to do what we can well. When we realize our limitations, our smallness, we can accomplish the possible, and we will see that, yes, that actually is enough.

While I don’t have a ton of energy to give, or a million dollars to give to charity, or a best-seller to give the world, I have other things to give. I have time to sit and laugh and talk—I’m usually not in a hurry. I am not afraid to pull out the frozen taquitos to serve a guest. I have time to pray for others, to ask God for help and healing and direction. While I’m working on getting better physically, I’m learning how to care for this body, this great and bumbling gift from God. I’m trusting that being chronically ill will make me into a more compassionate and giving person. I’m learning to love God and love others no matter where I’m at, no matter how much I have to give, because, really, it’s not about me.

It’s about God taking whatever I have to give, and making it enough. It’s about that hope and that trust in Him, that He knows what He’s doing, even with a broken person like myself. He can take the smallest of things and make them beautiful and significant, like woven threads in a tapestry. This makes us bold in our giving, no matter how small. We are free to give what we have, knowing that God can and will transform the smallest sacrifice, the littlest gift.