Loving My Limits

I don’t want a super-sized Diet Dr. Pepper. A medium, heavy on the ice, is fine–thank you. And I don’t covet more space than the 1,400 square feet I happily came to call my own last April. (Actually, there are still days when I think it might be too big.) I don’t need a newer car, more clothes, or music, or books, or pretty things to fill up my closets or shelves or rooms. I have enough stuff. I’m blessed.

I’m not unambitious. My head is still turned by beauty of all sorts.I hope to keep being asked to do meaningful work that matters to me. I hope to write more books, teach more lessons, craft more poems. I hope to grow (by breadth and depth) my circle of friends. I have plenty of longings that continue to tug at my heart. But they don’t break it. Not anymore.

I’ve dreamed of traveling to Africa, but it’s not likely that I ever will. I’m not able to take the vaccines currently required to do so. And I’d love to spend a few days at a place closer to home, too, but for now, that kind of trip is solidly out of my reach. Every once in a while I imagine what it might be like to have a tiny place in the country to get away to, although it’s just as nice to be loaned the keys to someone else’s now and then. Maybe nicer. And when people ask about the children they assume I have, although I feel compelled to deflect attention from my childlessness, I am grateful for the chances that are mine to demonstrate what I imagine mother-love to be..

Finally, after years of wanting, and seeking, and striving (and more than a little envy), I’m learning to love not just my gifts–but my limits. There are things I can’t do…may never do. Things I don’t currently have…and may never have. I could focus on them and become unhappy or resentful, or I could consider how those limits redirect me, refocus my desire, and refine my heart for the better. I could choose to glorify God by loving my limits, and living to the hilt here, now, with what I have, and nothing more.

There’s no shame in admitting I lack some things. In all things I have more than enough: I have Him.

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O God, are loving. Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.” (Psalm 62:1-2, 11-12)