He Is Always Enough

Today’s prompt at Faith Barista: Do you find it hard or easy to receive? 

For most of my life I’ve been a people pleaser. I don’t like when people are upset with me. It makes me uncomfortable. I am usually the one who tries to smooth things over, says the right thing, acts the right way. Most of the time it is easier for me to be the giver. The helper. The fixer. So, the question of whether it is hard or easy for me to receive is fairly obvious……..then God decided to teach a lesson.

My husband and I were smack dab in the middle of building our dream house, on acreage in rural Ohio. Everything we had was tied up in this house. Our dreams, our future, and most of our savings…….  In was late January of 2009 when my husband got the call. His career of almost twenty-three years at a top technology company, was ending. The voice on the other end of the line talked about cut backs, and downsizing, and severance packages.

God, not now! Not in the middle of building a house out of state. An upcoming move. We are not ready for this. This wasn’t part of our plan. Our house is only half finished. The economy isn’t all that great right now. How are we going to make it? Frustration, stress, and uncertainty set in. Some days were suffocating, drowning under the fear of losing everything.

But, then God showed us that with Him nothing is ever impossible and sometimes it takes the fear of losing everything to realize that He is all that we need.

My family members and I were the recipients of prayers, financial help, gift cards, pot luck dinners, and love…..lots of love. We were forced to be the receivers. It felt odd to be on this side of things, but we were so very grateful. We’ve all heard the saying, “God works in mysterious ways”. It is true, He does. The bank worked with us, we sold property and made some money on it, I was able to get an extended substitute teaching job, my husband worked online (and eventually got a job that allowed him to work remotely), we managed to come in under budget on our house building. So many things that God, in His perfect timing, worked out, and in the midst of it all, so many things that we learned. Those years were humbling and lessons learned were invaluable.

Yes, it could have not worked out this way. We very well could have lost everything we owned. In our early 40’s, with three teenagers in tow, we might have had to move back in with family. I won’t lie. It was scary. There were tears shed, and “why me’s” uttered in the dark of the night. Through it all, and believe me, the struggle was real, we clung to the hope we could only find in Jesus Christ. If everything else in this life goes away, Jesus is still here.

He is always enough.

Romans 8: 38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, ( nor losing a job, or a house, or debt, nor scary decisions about the future) nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”