By Kristen Entwistle

The morning after my last boyfriend broke up with me, I went to church, and sang the words to the song Your grace is enough as I held back the tears from my own breaking heart.

“Your grace is enough, God?” I thought.  “Enough for what?  Enough to heal my broken heart, enough to soothe my weary soul? Enough to be the One to take away the outward scars, and change this sinner’s heart?  Enough to fill the loneliness, the empty spaces, and the void I long to be filled?  Enough if what I long for never happens?  Enough if the desires of my heart – the desires I know You have placed there – never come true?  Is Your grace really enough for me?”

I know that His grace is enough to cover all of my sins.  That His grace is enough to pay the price for the punishment I rightly deserve.  I know that His grace is enough to prepare a place for me where I will live in His presence for eternity. But when my world seems to fall apart – be it because of a broken relationship, an illness, the loss of a loved one, or anything else – and I lose sight of the big picture, do I still believe that His grace is enough?

Deep down, I know that His grace is enough – for everything.  Not just the big, salvation things.  But also the little, every day broken pieces – the breaking hearts and scrapes and bruises from people’s words, the lonely places and the times of doubt.  His grace is enough.

It is not easy, for me, to sit and wait on God.  His timing and His will.  To accept that everything has a bigger purpose, one that I may never fully understand.  To see, sometimes, that His grace really is enough for my broken heart, the lonely places, and the times of doubt.

Because as time goes on, he continually shows me that His grace is enough, His love is enough, HE is enough.  That doesn’t mean that the unfulfilled desires of my heart are easier to bear, or the lonely nights aren’t still lonely, or that people’s words don’t still batter and bruise me.  But His grace is enough, even still.

So I look for the places of thanksgiving, the smallest things.  I look for the times when He is showing me that He is enough – in the two-year old running down the aisle at church to come see me, in the grace others extend to me, in the friends He has placed in my life, in the community I am surrounded by.  I look for the things that remind me that He is enough, so when I find myself in places of doubt and sadness, I remember that He is enough.