Dripping Laundry and enough

I originally decided that such thoughts should be a bit more private when a friend challenged me…who are we to only share our strengths with others and not are weaknesses our moments of faith only and not also our moments of doubting? How can we encourage others if we are not honest with ourselves.

We headed out with a “plan” which made it simpler to say “no” to one more Christmas in the states and leave before the holidays toward what awaited us. Then we arrived. We’ve been in Nairobi for three weeks now and all the plans that brought us here earlier then we planned have changed.

As we ushered in the new year today with our family at home I found myself thinking about how I really do not know at all what the future holds. We will be studying language somewhere for some amount of time. Decisions could take weeks to be made and even then everything changes quickly around here.We find ourselves in a bit of a holding pattern where our future is unclear to us.

So I have found my favorite time of the day is hanging the clothes up to dry. Laundry cannot sit here, there is no dryer and our laundry room is small so if we get behind we have wet clothes…well everywhere. Every day I run 1-2 loads and hang them to dry in the laundry room. This little room has no glass windows just some stucco patterning that allows in a breeze or squeals from children outside or sometimes lots of rain when it rains (quite often) here. It is often quiet as I hang them up and I find myself praying. Often in this quiet task God speaks to me and often asks, “is this enough Abukk”. If I brought you halfway around the world to hang laundry in Nairobi is this enough….or more specifically am I enough? What if I brought you out here to home school, cook, and clean, disciple the children and clean some more? I find myself crying out, of course Lord you are enough…and then the questions come, what are we doing here? how will we learn language? why did the visas fail to come through? Where will we live long term there is not enough housing for us? Did I really come to an environment that is harder to live and function in to hang laundry and treat my children for malaria and worms?

Then something amazing happens. It is time to do another load of laundry

The wringer is broken on the laundry machine so I wring each piece by hand and I hang it up and again he gently calls me, “is this enough Abuk…am I enough” I find the depth of my soul crying out, “yes Lord it is enough you are enough!” and then in the same breath “help my unbelief God meet me here”.

In many ways that little laundry room has become to me holy ground.

I don’t know if you are hanging laundry, pouring cereal, wiping noses, going to work,  or mopping floors but is that enough, is He enough? What if your life is summed up not in changing the world, or wild successes but in hanging laundry and knowing God is enough

What if God brings you halfway around the world to merely teach you more of Him, is it enough, is He enough?

I love hanging laundry because He reminds me that whether I am in Kinderuma 1b in Nairobi, a cute 2 bedroom in auburn or a mud hut in south Sudan it is enough because He is enough.