January 2013
Is this enough?
It is 10 am. The sun is shining on my feet through the East window in my kitchen. I am sitting in my "study spot" on the couch and as the hours pass, the ray will travel up to my eyes, back down the couch, across the floor and disappear around the house. At 4 o'clock it will again reappear through the South window across from my spot, and again blind me for a few minutes. I will shift my cramped body over to the left, squeeze my eyes shut, and feel them burn...
For the past 23 days, I have been on full time study mode as the NARM exam inches towards me. I have made the hard decision to remove myself from the "office" calender and not participate in client appointments. I have also adjusted my call schedule and handed my share of "first call" status off to other students...Those two things have made the midwife in me ache. My fingers yearn for the warmth of firm bellies and flesh, inside and out..The smell of birth and the feel of new life beneath my finger tips...
This thing of sitting still, focusing my attention, even being quiet is a challenge for me. Always has been. "Shes a doer", my mom would say. And that hasn't changed. Even sitting here, typing, is a small act of rebellion, against the very thing that will ultimately bring me one step closer reaching my "cauling".
'You' re going to do great" well wishers, friends, and family say... and as I eat, sleep and breathe (and make flashcard after flashcard...), I hear the quiet yet screaming voice in my head "Is is enough"?? Enough facts, enough detail, enough understanding, enough clarity?" Do I KNOW enough??? As I study, for every, "I know this", there are 10 (or more) things I don't...Or at least, that is the way it feels...
ENOUGH....Enough...enough...
Isn't this the plight of all mankind? Adam and Eve thought they didn't have or know enough, so they ate, Job's wife thought she didn't have enough and looked back, the Israelites thought they didn't have enough so a 10 day trip stretched to 40 years...What is it about the fear that we don't have or know enough?
Driving in the car yesterday, thinking on this, The Lord pointed out to me that if I BELIEVE HE has truly CALLED me to this profession, and paved away this time, will He not also give me enough? Enough time, enough energy, enough brain power, enough memory? And if I don't pass this exam, what will it say about all I have put into it? That I didn't DO enough? Really? Or does it simply come down to the nitty gritty reality of do I really believe and trust that HE is enough? Am I willing to allow Him to BE all these things to me and be content with it?
As the caffeine seeps into my system and I question whether I should be drinking this 2nd cup, I give myself permission to just breathe. "Just be here", I feel His spirit whisper. "Just stay here." Here. Not in the next minute,the next hour or far away imagining something that has yet to be..or not be. Here. I set my mug on the table. No, I don't need it and I pull my legs up under me and cover myself with my favorite blanket and let the sun sit on my face. Eyes closed, I take a breath in and a breath out and listen to the sound. Just like I instruct my laboring mamas to do when simply the act of breathing seems impossible. The words I often find myself whispering to a woman as she nears her time comes into my head, "Remember this moment, remember this moment..."
My head falls back on the couch, and in this moment His spirit calms my anxious heart and I know..
This is enough...
***PASSED***
