Saturday I met up for dinner with the woman I ride home with and her wife, as well as some of my other colleagues. We have fallen into a few patterns of conversation. We talk about religion, specifically mine, a lot. But somehow it is different when I am across the table and we are actually looking at each other and there are other people in the room. Everything just becomes more noticeable.
So we are having our conversation, she has asked me about something or other that has been a part of my life so long I don’t remember it is weird. (We may have been talking about Lent, which is kind of weird. And hard for me to explain because I am a protestant and don’t fully understand it. Though I do value participating in it.) Or something that is hard for me to understand, and I am just a little bit intimidated by how smart the questioner is. It is just, she always seems so sure about her positions.
Anyway, she says to me in the middle of me thinking about how to respond to something, “Sometimes when we are talking about this stuff, you look upward, as though you are waiting for God to come down and answer your question.” Apparently, I really don’t hide anything on my face. I suppose I am waiting for my God to give me the right words.
The right words. I have been waiting for the right words quite a bit lately. I think that somewhere it has gotten into my head and my heart that if I only speak clearly enough, choose the right words than all will be clear. I think it is a danger that makes sense in light of what I do. I teach english, I blog not only because I really like it, but also because I feel like the Lord is calling me to it.
But the truth is this, my words are as inadequate as the few fish and loaves were to feed thousands of people. My words, like myself, are from the dust and will return to dust. It is not up to me to make them enough. I only offer them to my savior. And sometimes they get multiplied. And sometimes, though I am doing my best, I get it totally wrong and He is gracious enough to work around that too.
Sometimes I think that I have to have all the answers. But I don’t and won’t this side of heaven. And I will probably discover on the other side that some of the things I was sure of aren’t right either. I was feeling bad about all of this inadequate talking and thinking. How am I ever going to get it right? But then I read this.
Psalm 121:1 and 2
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
Yup. I do that. I look up to the Lord and trust that God will help me. He will help me correct what I don’t have right. He will help me say what needs to be said. I lift my eyes to the mountains and my help comes from Him. And I may not have all the right answers, but I don’t have to because my help is always enough.
Abby Norman 
Amen. Reminds me of the 2wordstory.com campaign going on in metro detroit. My two words I chose to explain my story are Enough? Enough. I will never be enough, Jesus is always enough!
How do you say anything in two words? Incredible.
This blog resonated with me today. I went to do an assessment with a 14 year old teenage boy. I sat down with and tried to talk to him. He was totally unresponsive, not a single word back, he wouldn’t even look at me. I am not used to failing so miserably at engaging a hurting person and I seriously personalized it and felt like a failure. I didn’t say the right thing, that one thing that would make him open up and release all of that pain such a young kid should never have to experience. Instead he walked out on our assessment within the first 10 minutes and would not meet with me again. As I prayed over him on the way home I knew that God is the only one who will be able to reach him. AND even though I may have failed and been inadequate today it will not stand in the way of the plans God has for him. Thanks for the reassurance.