My word for 2020 is ENOUGH.

It’s such a great word and realization. And it’s so versatile!

• I can use it while standing tall, with clenched fists and lots of exclamation points. “Enough of THAT!!!”
• I can use it when I remember to put Fear in the back seat. So I can get on with Life. “Enough, already.”
• I can use it when no matter how I try, things just don’t turn out as I planned or wanted. So I can allow a glimmer of grace to creep-in and flip my compassion switch ON. “:: deep sigh:: Enough.”
• I can also use it when God/The Universe/and Everything Good presents one of those gobsmacking moments of awe and love. “THIS is enough.”

Advent is the season of waiting. On this fourth Sunday of Advent, things are starting to get exciting around my home. My two amaryllis plants are just starting to open. The blooms of the Christmas cactus I’ve had almost five years are about to explode for the first time. And the first lemon on my Meyer Lemon tree is, at last, beginning to shift from bright green to yellow.

So many have been waiting for so long. And in so many ways, the promises on the other side of all this, often very rugged, waiting are about to pay off. As I continue to wait, with great hope and faith, these words theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his fiancé, from prison, fill my mind and heart.

“I think we are going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that our outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential.”

And what is truly essential, is absolutely enough.