I sighed a breath of relief yesterday! I have been meeting with a woman online through Thrive’s Alongside mentoring program. I recently went through (another) big transition and a few months in, I realized I needed someone older and wiser to walk alongside me. So I have been meeting with this lady for a year now. Yesterday during our online conversation, we took the time to look back at where I was emotionally and spiritually a year ago. I felt relief as I said, “Whoosh! I guess I have grown in the last year.” 

It’s so helpful to look back and remember so we can chart change and celebrate God’s faithfulness in where we are today. I was struggling a year ago as I was trying to find my place in this new ministry context and this new country. I had never felt limited because I am a woman until I moved here, and I wasn’t expecting that. The enemy was quick to replay the old lies about my identity as I tried to find my footing. Maybe you have struggled with some of these questions too, “Who am I apart from what I do? If I am not producing or doing ‘enough’, am I valuable? What am I going to put in the next newsletter to my supporters? People are giving so much money for me to be here, am I doing enough?”  

The word “enough” was a consistent word in those questions and doubts. I want to be enough. I want to do enough. I want to make a difference. There is another reoccurring word in those statements, “I, I, I.” So I have learned this year to stop focusing on myself and whether I am meeting whatever requirements in my mind constitute “enough”. I have learned or probably relearned to look to Jesus and let Him tell me if I am enough. And in that process, I have seen Him lead in some very clear ways in the last year. Most of the ways that He has led has been through closed doors. We are now doing a very different ministry than we thought we were going to do when we moved here. But we are in the right place and I am at peace that I am walking in the good works that He prepared in advance for me to do. I don’t have everything mapped out and there are still some unknowns, but I am more secure in who I am in Him. He is enough and I belong to Him. I serve Him and I am going to trust Him to do what He wants to do in me and through me. That is enough.