Why "You are Enough" Can Feel Like a Burden

 By: Rebekah Hargraves

Photo Courtesy Of: Thought Catalog

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.' Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me." ~2 Corinthians 12:9

My husband's deployment (that we are so grateful to be over with!) began a year ago yesterday, and this anniversary has brought so many memories come rushing back. If there is something that solo parenting showed me real fast, it is that I am, in fact, not enough on my own (I may have covered this fact in a book I wrote 4 years ago, but sometimes it takes a particularly hard and stretching season for me to REALLY fully realize some things!).

The truth is that I am not enough on my own. Please don’t tell me I am. It actually isn’t helpful. 

I’ve seen my own “not enough-ness” especially during that deployment season, and that is actually a gift each time that it happens.

I wasn't enough when my child was crying over missing daddy.

I wasn't enough when only a month into deployment (with many more months stretching out into the future) the Kabul airport situation happened, and the fear and grief swept in like a torrent.

I wasn't enough when the kids needed schooling AND parenting, the house needed cleaning, the food needed preparing, the yard needed mowing, the chicken coop needed cleaning, oh and also I walked outside to discover a flat tire on my car and a van whose battery apparently just died, and wasn't enough then, either. 

I am not enough. I could not wear all those hats, juggle all those plates, meet all those needs on my own. 

But guess what? That was a relief to me! It was a huge relief!

That’s why I don’t want to be told I am enough - because then it’s still all on me, and I have to try to bear up under the weight of it all, all on my own.

But, thankfully, I was never designed to be enough all on my own - that is a burden the Lord never wanted to have me be weighed down under. 

That is why HE came in to fill all the gaps, to be an ever-present Father to my children when their earthly father was 7,000 miles away, to be a comfort and safe place for me through all the scary and tumultuous ups and downs of that season. 

That is why He blessed us with the body of Christ to help us with car trouble, to provide a meal, to have coffee delivered as a little pick-me-up, to watch my children so I can have a break, to mow my yard when I just can’t.

Friend, you are not enough on your own, either. You cannot meet all the needs on your own, and you simply cannot be all things to all people. But that’s a GOOD thing! That’s a relief. It's ok! It’s not all on you! And when you realize that the power of God rests on you and is made perfect specifically when you are at your weakest, well, then you can rest peacefully in the enoughness of your Heavenly Father! And breathe easy, with that burden now lifted.