Beloved is Enough

In the world of Christian women, there is a great tug-of-war over the phrase, “I am enough.” Some use it liberally, others not at all. Some wave it as a banner to rally around, others condemn it as deception.

But couldn’t both be true?

As a child, my Mom repeated several sayings that stuck with me over the years. Sending me out the door to school, she would call, “be a shining light for Jesus.” During discouragements, she reminded us, “Life is 100 percent not fair.” When finally my parents got a TV (that didn’t even really work!), she told us time and again, “set no unwholesome thing before your eyes.”

But perhaps the saying that shaped me more than any other was, “You are a princess in the Kingdom of God.” Whether a test, a new school, a piano recital, or tryouts, she told me, “You are a princess in the Kingdom of God. This is all that matters.”

The fallout from these conversations were the building blocks of confidence in God, and my place in His love.

I was one of those women who condemned the saying as Satan’s deception. You could look back and find the places I wrote, “I am not enough, but God is!”

Yet I have learned something recently. It is from the heart of a woman who needs the affirmation “I am enough.”

Imagine a woman, and maybe this is you, who grew up never knowing love. She enters her twenties having built a resume of regrets. She feels shame. Fear. Loss. Regret. Then she finds Jesus. He forgives her and redeems her regret. She is who she is and God loves her!

Yet because of her upbringing, she still feels like a fraud. I give such grace to this woman. She rebukes the shame with “I am enough.” And I applaud her for it!

However, even after comparing these two sides of the same coin, I would like to offer an alternative for both:

Beloved is enough.

Ephesians 3:18-19 says, “You, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Being beloved is the root system of our lives. It is the hidden portions of the heart, grown as we drink deeply from Jesus.

Most will never see the web-like root system, but many will take in the flourishing that comes from vibrant roots. When you are filled to the fullness of God, you can’t help but spill over abundance.

So here is what we will do! We will fall more in love with Jesus. Period.

Adoration multiplies belovedness. And I want to flourish in this kind of garden. Don’t you?