Barbie Loflin

I grew up in Walls Hollow, a small coal mining community in East Tennessee. The curvy dirt road was easy to miss if you were not looking for it.A meandering dance of memorized potholes led into the woods where small plots of land had been cleared by those strong and determined enough to wield an ax and hold tight to a tiller. I remember well the days we would carry a sack lunch and sit out on the ground while daddy, papaw and my uncles worked our few acres, making a place for our house to be built. No bulldozers touched the soil, only worn leather work boots and buckets of sweat.

It was on our first visit to the hollow that Bum adopted us.

He had sorrowful brown eyes and coarse red/brown hair. He was gangly and uncoordinated and his ribs showed plainly against his taught skin.His back left leg had obviously been broken when he was small and had healed into a now useless appendage. He was starving, pitiful, and broken… and as he grabbed the bologna sandwich out of my hand, I thought he was the most beautiful hound dog in the whole world. I decided right then and there that he would be mine…‘cause he needed me.

I did not call him Bum; my daddy did.He would watch Bum skulking around begging and tell us to run the “bum” off.Eventually daddy would fall in love with the sad soul, but his name, Bum, would stick. Bum was my constant companion in those years.He ran the hills with me, waded the creeks, sat patiently at the bottom of trees as I climbed high and sat in their branches.Bum would run beside me as I rode my bike down dusty trails, often becoming entangled in the wheels in his desire to be close, sending us both tumbling.He would look at me as if to ask, why did you run over me?Still, he would keep pace as we started back on our journeys.

I loved that dog for several reasons, but the biggest reason was that he openly adored me.I could tell when he looked at me that I was enough.He was not daydreaming about other children in other fields.He was not thinking, what is up with her hair? No.Bum loved me.By the same token, I never thought… wish he wasn’t crippled or could run faster.

He was enough. Beautifully, completely, enough.

Love makes us enough.In a world where it is easy to fall short, it is a wonderful thing to know that you are enough.

Many of us walk through our Christian lives feeling like God has His mind on someone else.We think if we could just be better, or funnier, or smarter, or more talented… or less crippled, He would love us more.But you know what?His love makes us enough.He loves every moment we spend with Him.

It is enough.

Why is everyone hungry for more? “More, more,” they say. “More, more.”

I have God’s more-than-enough,Psalm 4:5-7