Scarcity

We are driving to McDonalds on a Thursday morning, our 4th get-together meeting in 24 hours. We went on an overnight road trip to our college town to connect with people before we go back to Eastern Europe in seven short weeks. We have our 3 year old, 1 1/2 year old and a 3 week old strapped down in the back seat.

Operating on three kids under three in 1 hotel room kind of sleep, I quickly run the numbers in my mind: "45 minutes till Soren needs a distracting fun activity, 75 minuets till our next meeting, 3 hours till everyone gets hungry, baby needs to nurse in 6 minutes, naptime meltdown in about 4 1/2 hours"

I say to Jesse : "I hate that we are 10 minutes late again."

What I meant: I hate that you misplaced the baby wipes and dishonored my pristine packing job and we are now late again!

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I sometimes wake up striving. I wake up believing there just isn't enough...

Not enough energy.

Not enough money.

Not enough time. 

this is called Scarcity

Scarcity: the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human wants in a world of limited resources.

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I recently read Brene Brown's Gifts of Imperfection. It was pretty epic, I learned a ton. But one thing REALLY stuck with me. 

She talks about scarcity being the enemy of gratitude. 

Scarcity is the fear of not enough.

She quotes Lynne Twist...

“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didnt get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life”

sound familiar?

Dwelling on scarcity makes  me crazy. it makes me controlling. It  makes me a stressed out mom and a snippy mean wife. What is Scarcity? This idol I sacrifice my joy and gratitude for? 

IT'S A LIE.

There is enough...

3His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 2 Peter 1

EVERYTHING WE NEED for a Godly life. Everything.  
If we don't have it...
then it's not what we need to live a godly life. 
There is always enough! 

"addressing scarcity does not mean looking for abundance, it means choosing a mindset of sufficiency...It isn't an amount at all, It's an experience, a context we generate, a declaration knowing there is enough, and that we are enough".

Could you imagine how differently I would approach life if I let this truth take hold in my heart. Could you imagine how my marriage would look if I wasn't trying to control my husband 'for the greater good'. I can, I have tried it. Choosing to believe and meditate on God's sufficiency is like Joy fairy dust. 

The baby starts screaming, and Xander wants more water, Jesse is asking where some random baby item is, Soren Pushes Xander, and I am sure we are late for something.  I can feel my heart start to beat faster...

 I stop. There is enough. 
God's grace is enough.
 I have joy. 
I have all the time and energy I need to lead a godly life.

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Choose Grace, Think Sufficiency, Spill Gratitude, Radiate Joy.