enough for today

Scott just returned from a week away and just before he left a dear friend encouraged me to "keep my expectations low".  so, for 7 days i've been operating under the banner of "good enough".  cleaning, eating, and sometimes parenting...there have been many hours of movie watching with the kids (superhero movies to be exact because for some reason i'm the fan in this marriage),  nutritionally exempt choices (weiners wrapped in pillsbury croissant dough for dinner was a low point) and getting the dishes done was the extent of my cleaning (ok, i swept too).  i was explaining these good enough actions to my friend dawn yesterday and she said "oh how the mighty have fallen".  true true.  which is why it's never good to think of me as mighty.

i've had the song "enough" by Sara Groves looping in my head for days:

late nights, long hours
questions are drawn like a thin red line
no comfort left over
no safe harbour in sight
really we don't need much
just faith to believe
there's honey in the rock
there's more than we see
these patches of joy
these stretches of sorrow
there's enough for today
there'll be enough tomorrow

this song was a gift from my brother-in-law a year and a half ago, and truly pushed me through some hard anxiety-ridden days.  and there was enough.  there was always enough - enough compassion, enough tenderness, enough coffee and friendship and light for the next day.  sometimes more than enough, and sometimes scraping the bottom of the bowl.

yesterday i was reading in the Bible about the Israelites in the wilderness after being rescued from Egypt.  i remember reading these stories as a teen and thinking "what is their problem.... stop complaining and just trust!  i mean, God just literally parted a sea for you!!!" and that Prince of Egypt movie didn't help - the whale in the wall of water?!!!  come on!

but now i read these stories and think - i would totally do that.  i would forget, and fear, and see the hunger and thirst in my children's eyes and get angry.  i would totally have been up in Moses' face, complaining and questioning.  why are we here?  why did God bring us out here for this pain?  i know i would totally do that because i have done it, many many times.

then God sends manna.  just enough for each day - no more (except before sabbath which is incredible and worthy of a whole other post).  and we read that it's a test, a test of trust.  can these mothers and fathers collect just enough for one day and trust that in the morning there will be more? one day at a time.

i've heard about an orphanage during one of the world wars where they started allowing children to sleep with a loaf of bread.  these poor children were so afraid, they had lived through such destitution, scrounging around for morsels to eat until they were rescued, that the only way they would truly rest was in the security of knowing they would have enough to eat for the next day.  they slept with the bread in their arms, like security blankets, or teddy bears.

i feel like this is a season, again, of trust.  i find myself scrounging and need to remind myself of manna, of enough.  i am trapped by my responsibility - the belief i have to find a way to make some money and help keep this household afloat - and wake up in the mornings with my jaw screaming from clenching my teeth all night.  here's what God reminded me this week:  i am not responsible for this.  i am responsible for following the cloud, for warming myself by the fire, and trusting for the bread in the morning.

He has promised there will be enough.