When You're not Mama Enough, Woman Enough: He is Enough

Esther Sophia,

You are six months old, slobbering trails across the carpet as you pull your slim baby legs towards the pile of red and blue Legos scattered just beyond your slender fingers. You look back at me, your mama, and smile till the dimples on either side of your mouth press in and those brown eyes light up my world.

Esther, there’s nothing more beautiful and terrifying than being your Mama.

I dream of years ahead—of tea parties and picnics on green grass, of dressing you in white lace and pink tulle, of mother-daughter giggles in the dark after bedtime stories. These are things my Mama never did with me and I wished she did.

My Mama hid in her sewing room, hid behind baking bread, teaching Bible studies, and grading papers.

My Mama hid her soul from me.

When I was nine, I sent my Mama notes scrawled in red crayon across pink construction paper saying “I love you,” craving for the words, “I love you too.”

To love and be loved,

To know and be known,

This was my soul-cry.

Esther, being your mama scares me to death because the same fear that kept my Mama from knowing and loving me threatens to keep me from knowing and loving you.

I’m afraid I’m not woman enough for this world, mama enough for you.

Just like my Mama, I’ve hidden behind to-do lists, Bible talk, and pretty clothes, desperately trying to prove I am enough!

But I’ve finally learned: hiding from the truth never works out very well.

Eventually you run into another woman who’s stronger, prettier, more organized, more talented, and in order to prove you are still enough, you tear down the feminine soul in front of you—the mama next door, the gal in the pew in front of you, the daughter crawling under your feet.

Esther, my fearful-feminine heart is tempted to cage you in a tiny box—as my mother caged me—and this caging, it's the cruelest form of tearing down.

Caging squelches the soul--the passion and personality that is you so I don’t have to face the truth about me—I am not enough.

But God—

Oh how I love the pregnant grace of these words—But God!

Rich in mercy,

Full of love,

He is enough.

This cage-breaking truth—that God is enough—brings me to my knees again and again.

It’s only when I’m on my knees that I’m woman enough, mother enough because HE is enough.

So, Esther Sophia, my daughter,

As we begin this mother-daughter journey together,

My soul believes God is enough,

And because God is enough,

I am mama enough for you,

You are daughter enough for me,

And together we will play, laugh, cry and fight our way

To know and be known.

To love and be loved.

To the Glory of the God who is Enough.

Love,

Your Mama

 "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

(2 Corinthians 12:9)