It was our second night in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar, and with our hosts, the children of Agape Orphanage and their headmasters, Hannah and Richard. We had just finished playing games and eating together outside and now all of us were standing underneath the stars, lifting our voices in unison, at the top of our lungs. Heaven felt tangible and real: I could taste it in the dusty air, see it in the incandescent faces of the sweet children, and hear it in their voices, possessed by the type of angelic resonance that brings one to tears. It was magical and awe-inducing; a moment of pure bliss. And something deep inside of me was shifting, changing, being illuminated. To put it lightly, I was being transformed.
We, that is myself and my teammates, knew already this place and the community of Agape was different. We noticed it the moment we stepped on the property. Granted, that was hard to miss, what with some 70-odd children lining a driveway for a hundred yards, who welcome you in a sing-song unison of “Good morning!” while jumping and waiting with anticipation for the moment they can tackle hug you with “I love you!”-‘s. Yeah, I’ll admit it. I cried the first time I met them.
But God had decided He would use them to show me something I never anticipated. As we continued on throughout the rest of that second night, we shifted from singing to prayer. All 70-something children circled around a particular building that Agape had put a payment on, but were still lacking the funds to pay it off completely. If they couldn’t pay it off in the next couple months, they would lose it. Laying their on hands and without hesitation, the children erupted into confident intercession. Once again, beautiful…and in that moment, I felt the Lord nudging me to take it in.
“What do you want me to take in from this?” I asked.
“Being enough.” He responded
We left that night, and I felt like an unknown work had been done inside of me that I could not yet grasp with a coherent thought. I didn’t understand it yet, this “enough” He had spoken of. But it was exciting. And I felt…alive. In my heart, I had experienced something fundamnetally different than what I thought I understood about living in a Kingdom of Heaven reality on earth. This new information sparked some deep, identity level transformation. It was like a well of new life had suddenly been tapped open, and I was feeling the bubbling excitement that accompanies new possibility.
What unraveled over the following weeks was a series of moments the Lord used, continuing to pull me into this opening reality, expanding His concept of “enough”. He gave it to me it in bits and pieces. Part of our ministry for the month included daily visiting with families and friends of our host, Hannah and Richard. I was finding it easier to be present, take in, and give accordingly to the situation. Our team was moving in tandem with one another and God was showing us His power as we were showing up. We shared stories, meals, laughter and witnessed people experience healing and love. And as I went, the burdens of striving naturally lifted before I had the chance to realize the force behind it.
We ended our days with the children, and I continued to try and learn, taken in by whatever this aliveness was that they possessed, that I felt every time I looked in their eyes, watched them sing praises, heard their prayers, or even just stood in their presence. I felt humbled by the way embodied purity while simultaneously operating in power.
While watching one particular night, I heard Him whisper, “They understand something you do not, yet.” And it dawned on me…could it be that the power was in their innocence? Kingdom reality always seems to be paradoxical like that. Jesus himself said, “let the children come…the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” I mean, these children didn’t even have the concept that they needed to be something and have all these talents to be present to the thing in front of them. Neither the misconceptions or projections from society or culture, nor the internalized expectations of even the well-meaning, but sometimes hurtful church culture, had been given enough time to form a sieve within them through which to filter their actions. They were not thinking about who they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to do to effectively be His hands and feet. I found myself realizing…as they lived in their innocence, they were simply showing up and being as their Creator created them and it was enough. And then He whispered… I was no different. I was enough, too.
What came after was another unexpected blessing: freedom. A flood of exhilarating freedom. See, this enough-ness was not, is not, measured by having some amount of talent or trait I have to offer. Or how much experience, knowledge, or wisdom I can bring to the table. Or whether I have the right thing to say in a given situation. Or if I fail miserably when it matters most and let down people who are counting on me. It is something wholly and inherently other. It helped explain the wonderful lack of striving I was feeling. As the Psalms proclaim in chapter 19:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
The sky and clouds and rain and snow and children can’t be anything other than what they are, and in that, they are enough and they give Him glory and bring Him delight. And I believe that is the something rooted our inherent, created nature making us valuable as we reflect a facet of beauty and creativity of THE One, the Creator. Living as He created me…oh, what insurmountable freedom!
But I found as I was learning and giving myself permission to lean into this enough-ness, I was simultaneously learning to what extent that I, in fact, had internalized all those expectations by both society and myself. It’s a simple concept, being enough. But let’s be real, it’s a complicated thing to unlearn. I had an immediate and heightened awareness of how “proving” urges were interwoven into my every-day thought patterns. I’m still coming to terms that this is a life-long thing of unlearning to compensate for my perceived deficits. Realizing that’s part of the very nature of being rewired into enough-ness existance. And I’m seeing how the real, needed growth happens naturally when I stop inhibiting it by trying to be something more than what I am. On the brightside, it’s a relief to know, again, the lesson that I don’t need to have it all figured out. But still, the freedom is so worthy of pursuit and I am committed.
I was pretty sure that second night spent with the Agape children would be a night I would never forget. And now, I’m absolutely positive that God did, indeed, spark a forever-transformation work. This process of learning to be present as exactly who I am, a reflection of my Creator, and to know that Heaven is will come and God is glorified. This process of showing up and being enough.
