Ros Boydell

These are Ros’s words, not mine. I know you have come to appreciate her wisdom so much, I want to bless you with it again. Capacity, I’ve been thinking about that reality a lot these past several months. So although our circumstances are very different, I get Ros’s reality. I bet you will too.

Bill and I are on the beach!! A perfect time to let my friend share her heart with you.

“You haven’t heard from me in a while, perhaps you’ve noticed. There seems to be a gaping hole between my desire to connect with you, and my capacity to.

I see you, though, and know enough about who you are to be curious about what’s going on. Where are you finding your heart tilting towards the sun? What happened in that situation you told me about? I want to know. I want to love you with my ears, my questions, my interest. I want to tell you how brave you are for going through all you’ve been going through. I want you to know how much I respect you.

And yet –

I have done none of these things.

The days have turned into weeks, into months. And now here we are, well established in this dark valley and I find myself estranged. Not just from normal patterns and routine but, most frustratingly, capacity. Estranged from the ability to engage with very much other than what is hitting me in the face..

It was Mary Oliver who wrote

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was gift..

These past months I have let people down, disappointed others. I have not followed through on my words. I’ve been on edge with those I love most, and unable to summon energy or creativity to brighten anyone’s day. (Or pray.)

But into that miserable melee comes awareness of a gift. A gift no-one looks for, but everyone has, if only they are able to view it that way.

The gift?

The gift is the liberty of insufficiency..

In this moment of stumbling feet, of wounds that smart, thoughts that dart, rawness of heart: I am free.

I am released from the burden of being everything to everyone, of being all things to all people. It was never my burden to carry anyway, but oh how often I’m tempted to imagine I can.

There’s no denying it: being confronted with your own insufficiency over and over again is uncomfortable. It seems messy, undignified. We imagine it would be more glorifying to God for us to be the all-singing, all-dancing of ourselves.

But, as I have discovered- and here is the gift- when we come face-to-face with the discomfort of our own insufficiency, we find ourselves face-to-face with he who can only be described as the Supreme Sufficiency.

The One who is Unchangeable, Wise, Good. The One who is Peace, as in shalom, the divine Restorer of all that is fractured.

He who is Supreme dignifies us with the liberty of insufficiency. Dignifies what seems to us so undignified. Whispers Grace.

Grace.

Grace.

Grace.

My grace is sufficient, and my power made perfect in weakness..

The pressure is off.

So forgive me dear friends, for viewing this – concern-filled, stress-addled- version of myself with some welcome. And when my capacities return, which they will, I hope they’ll bring with them a fresh imprint. The imprint of the One who is indeed everything any of us have ever needed, and always has been, even though many days we grapple around in the gravel, rather than receive the jewel so freely proffered.

And when I do finally call – which I look forward to – perhaps we can raise a toast to insufficiency embraced? We are free, dear friend. We have been liberated from the bondage of self-sufficiency, and are free.”