More Than Enough?
by Elouise
In Fall 1999, my husband and I spent my sabbatical semester at a seminary in Nairobi, Kenya. Stunning beauty surrounded us: flaming sunsets and colorful sunrises, flowering trees and shrubs, brilliant birds, sassy monkeys, hungry dogs, hungry chickens, goats and cows. Nearly everyone lived on the seminary campus: students, faculty, staff and administrators, all with their families.
Classes met in one of two long, converted chicken coops. The converted chicken coops also housed faculty offices, a small xerox room, and a small bookstore with a small inventory.
We purchased and shipped textbooks in advance, not knowing how many would sign up for our courses, or whether students would be able to buy the books.
Paper was scarce. My students made notes in tiny handwriting, using all margins and both sides of the paper. Chalkboards were old and pitted, difficult to write on and almost impossible to erase.
Every window was drafty. During the dry season fine, red dust quickly coated everything. During the rainy season thick red mud replaced fine red dust, until it too became fine red dust.
Electricity was fickle. Working telephones were scarce. Refrigerators were a luxury. Medical services for students and staff were almost nonexistent.
I came home knowing I have more than enough. At the seminary where I taught, I had more than enough paper, electricity, chalkboards, chairs, books and classrooms. The seminary always needed more money. But guess what? I had more than enough of that, too.
Comparisons are tricky. Especially if all I do is compare myself with others here or elsewhere. It’s easy for me to get trapped and paralyzed. Caught somewhere between guilt, discontent, anxiety and envy.
- Guilt because I know I have more than enough
- Discontent because I don’t have what I think I need
- Anxiety because I never have enough of what I think I need
- Envy because I don’t have as much as that other person up the road, over the river or across the street
Christian faith invites me to consider Jesus. It isn’t about what I have or don’t have. Or how I measure up to other people. It’s about what I’ve been given. It’s about finding, as Jesus did, more than enough in what God has given me. This includes the gift of women, men, young people and children whose lives have intersected mine.
I believe God has given us more than enough to feed our deep human hunger; more than enough to engage the confusion and messiness of human history; and more than enough to sustain us in our human suffering and death. If we’re willing to go there.
I’m not Jesus. I haven’t been sent to save the world. I’m one of Jesus’ human sisters and brothers, learning to accept my God-given human limitations and the reality of my failures. I’m also learning to work with others to do what we can do, not what we cannot do.
Sometimes I get it. Always, I count on this: God loves this world and us so much as human beings, that God dared to engage us within all the confusion and messiness of this world. In Jesus, God saw us, touched us, listened to us and spoke with us—with an open, vulnerable heart, open hands, and truth that sometimes hurt.
It’s OK if I don’t get it all right. There’s more than enough good news, forgiveness and courage to go around. Especially courage to change the things I can, right now.
* * * * *
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 February 2015
Excerpt adapted from a March 2004 seminary presentation
I know what you are saying and I agree. But I wonder if my brother does. Michael has worked all his life translating the Bible from Genesis to Revelation into the language of the Torres Strait Islanders in Northern Queensland. Australians don’t care for the aborigines and so he get very little financial support. Churches will support Bible Translators in Nepal and the pacific Island and all sorts of exotic lands, but our local aborigines don’t need a Bible – they can learn English. So with a Down Syndrome son and a daughter with a chronic illness he has just finished. And so the Bible Translating organisation will no longer provide him with a house. And the only way he will survive it to apply for Social Service allowance. But he is too proud to do so. He has worked for his Lord all his life and he doesn’t have enough.
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This is so sad, but I do believe that there’s enough luck for everybody on earth. I bet that in his heart there is much more than in the hearts of people who have more than enough.
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I think this is for suchled. I agree with your comment about his brother’s heart. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Elouise
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Thank you, suchled, for sharing your brother’s situation. He sounds like a remarkable person–strong, persistent, and committed. And left without enough–along the way and at the end of his official service. I used to tell my students that the three most difficult words for people in ministry to say are “I need help.” I know this because I’m one of them. Also because my father was. Asking for help and accepting offers of help were, to him, signs of weakness and lack of faith. Perhaps even a sign that he’d been wrong all his life–taken the wrong route? At any rate, he was determined to ‘get along by myself.’ My heart goes out to you and to your brother. He has given so much to so many. It’s no fun having a family member or a friend who won’t ask for help or even receive it, especially when it’s right there for the asking. You named it–pride. Not good pride in a job well done, for example, but the kind that isolates us from other people.
Elouise
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A beautiful post. It takes courage and the grace of God to affirm that there is more than enough and to seek to live out that affirmation.
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Thank you, Mary. I agree with you. Admitting it is difficult, and for me it’s even more difficult living it out in our USA context. Materially as well as relationally.
Elouise
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