Sufficient Grace

Thursday, November 3

Sufficient Grace
By: Lori Ennis

“My Grace is sufficient for you.” II Corinthians 12:9

Thirteen years ago, on the 28th of this month, my first child died.
He’d been long sought–many failed adoptions and years of infertility left us finally feeling we’d overcome it all when we went to the hospital to deliver my overdue baby.

A rare labor fluke stole him, and I’m pretty sure the entirety of St. Mary’s county heard about what had happened and wept with us as they learned he died the next day. I nearly died in the process, and the whole situation was one that people can’t even imagine.

Two days later, we walked into our church to plan his funeral and my pastor at the time scooped my husband and me in his arms and said, ‘His grace is sufficient.”

In my head, I fumed.
“THAT’S all you have?” I thought. 
My beautiful, perfect, loved-beyond-words baby was dead and cold, and those were the words he chose to make me feel better?

Because the truth is, nothing about God felt sufficient. 
In fact, in those moments and days after Matthew died, I doubted God was even real. 

How can a good God let children die before their parents?

In the verse above, sufficiency is used to imply ‘strong enough to ward off attacks’ –and trust me, if the devil ever wanted to steal a good little Baptist girl from God, killing her baby was a sure shot.

But Jesus. 
His grace holds on and doesn’t let go. It keeps us taking the next breath and the next breath, and it defends us against the attacks of Satan that would have us believe nothing but lies.

After Matthew died, I wanted to die. I dared God to pick up the pieces of the broken life He’d allowed me to have, knowing He never could unless He brought my son back to life.

But my pastor wasn’t wrong.
His grace was sufficient. 

Slowly, but surely through the years, I’ve come to see how those words were painful to hear, but bravely spoken in love and truth.

No, God didn’t bring my son back to life, but He walked with me in every step I took. He filled my world with the hands and feet of His church, and when my second son was born a year later, He reminded me that sorrow and joy can coexist in a beautiful tapestry that God creates from ashes and dry bones. 

Death is ugly and painful. It brings us to places that are unimaginable unless you experience them yourself. 

There’s never any good answer for death, and it’s exhausting and futile to try to figure one out. 

But His grace…His grace is merciful and comforting and restorative and redemptive.

And without question, sufficient. 

If your heart is broken, pour your sorrows out to Him…He weeps with you and will bring you a Peace that surpasses all understanding.