More Than Enough
The strums from the guitar fill the room and rattle space in my stomach. I can’t ignore the fact that I haven’t since breakfast at 7am. It’s now 7pm, but tonight there will be no dinner, and in the morning there will be no breakfast. I stand in a dark room with a hundred teens as hungry as me. Instead of complaining we are worshiping.
I watch the screen on the wall flash the words to the next song. The drums start. Then the bass joins in. Then I open my mouth and begin to sing: “You are my supply, my breath of life…” But I stop. Anticipating the chorus, I can no longer sing — a lump forms in my throat and my eyes begin to water.
I stare at the screen and read:
And all of you
Is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in you is more than enough.
I have not eaten. Tonight I will sleep on the floor in the same clothes I am wearing now. I will not shower — I have no soap, no shampoo. I will not brush my teeth — I don’t have a toothbrush or toothpaste. Make-up is out of the question. But I will have a sleeping bag, a pillow, a warm place to sleep, friends, shelter. I will only live like this for thirty hours, but some live like this every day.
As the chorus approaches again, I think of the believers in Cambodia — the ones who live in a one-room house above a sewage swamp, the ones whose parents are dying of AIDS, the ones who have one pot and one kilo of rice. Then I remember them gathered together on small plastic stools in the dirt and heat joyfully singing words similar to these. “You are more than enough. More than I want, more than all I need.” With so little, how could I ever sing of having “more than enough” — more then enough for every want and need. But, if standing in the midst of a congregation of Sunday whose every need is met and more, wouldn’t these words mean much more, take so much more faith and true belief to sing if I had nothing in the world? Do I, with all my “things,” truly believe that Jesus is enough — more than enough?
With tears streaming down my cheeks and face lifted up, I am the poor Cambodia singing, I am the homeless mother singing, I am Cara Irene without food singing:
More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me.
More than all I know
More than all I can see
You are more than enough for me.
More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me.
More than all I know
More than all I can see
You are more than enough.All of you
Is more than enough for
All of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in you. (Oh Yeah)
And all I have in you. (Jesus)
And all I have in you is more than enough.
More than enough.
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