Am I enough?

Tim describes my demeanor with an oft-quoted term of endearment, “She is all girl, and all woman.”

He has no idea the extent to which his affection for me is bringing out the girl and the woman. Every day I am growing through work that requires that I pour my heart into serving. I am growing old as I sit close to the suffering of people who were born with severe disabilities, but I am also growing young--- laughing more than I have since I was a little girl.

I am laughing because Tim loves me.

We are Adam and Eve and we discover ourselves in each other. In Adam's Diary Samuel Clemen’s portrays the first woman's adoration of the beauty of the Earth this way:

She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can’t speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space—none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them.

This is the exburance for life that love is letting me taste. I have begun to shed the somber skin of an insecure woman and now I find that the Sarah underneath is young with wonder, resembling the Eve of Eden—new to the world. New awe shudders through me as I drink in creation.

And of course Tim is Adam to me, my love and the one who loves me. He has a deeper understanding of the nature of love than I. Though he is younger he has lived in this light longer. So I am learning from him and his family more about the generous world where love has transplanted my soul.

…And can I tell you there is something intoxicating about being desired the way my husband desires me?

After months of Tim living with sick me, whinny me, crabby me, depressed me, tired me--- he still loves only me, every part of me, for all of time. All his love is convincing parts of my heart which I assumed where beyond repair that I am loveable and lovely.

Ironically for awhile this love has actually made me angry at a God who I grew-up believing wanted me to be more like the beautiful, perfect people. I didn’t know that love could ever say who I am is enough. When Tim convinced me that he actually thought this mess was beautiful; I didn’t give the credit for this ministry to the Spirit of God who indwelled him.

So my desire was for my husband and he became my first love… This was no outright denial of the love, hunger, and awe I feel toward the Trinity, but a subtle shifting of priorities toward the only one I perceived to love me as I am. For awhile Tim consumed my life, then things began to ache in me… because I began to long that God would love me as my husband does.

Then the other day I found my heart praying with the song Beautiful by Bethany Dillon,

I want to be beautiful
Make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart, and be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful

And I realized that all that time growing up it was the worldly parts of the church that were rejecting me not the Father. Not what was true and beautiful in the body of Christ... because I am a piece of the true and the beautiful.

In a flash the Spirit overwhelmed me with His love for the-me-He-created and I recognized that all these past months it has been Him loving me through my husband.

All that I am and all that has happened is not an accident…

He showed me how I have been designed with intention and love. He told me if He were to paint a picture of who He wants me to be, I would look like myself. l would be wearing my frayed jeans, a four year old t-shirt, and worn tennis shoes. My hair would be falling out of a pony-tail, and my face make-up free. My nose would be crooked. My lashes long. My nails short. My arms scarred.

I would be laughing or day-dreaming…. or crying with my face buried in my hands.

I would be pushing my fly-away-baby-hairs out of my eyes as I draw, leaving both hands and face smudged with pencil led.

…. Maybe I would be

• writing with laptop balanced on my knees
• mirroring the smile of my client as we talk with our eyes.
• whispering to God as tears running down my cheeks
• resting my head on Tim’s shoulder

Because all these pieces of me are predestined, designed, and desired.

As I stand back and examine this painting in my mind, I can love the humanity, the authenticity, the way I have embraced the practice of wearing the scars and joys of the journey as evidence of Grace.

I am not the beautiful “popular” girl I dreamed of being. I am not successful or wealthy. I don’t have scores of friends, nice clothes, a new car, or a beautiful house. I am not the perfect sister, daughter, or wife.

But I am me… being stretched, molded, re-created by the Holy Spirit who indwells me. I am loved, desired, designed--- even when I make a mess of me.

All this healing is evidence that indeed,

The moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

Romans 8:26-30