Strength in Weakness

I keep hearing from people how when we make it through all of this, we are going to be just so much stronger.  I’d been clinging to that, because I feel SO WEAK right now.  I have good moments and bad moments, and mostly, I don’t share too much here until I’ve kind of made it through those bad moments and found that silver lining, that piece of inspiration, because frankly, reading about someone feeling sad, scared, depressed, lonely, etc. ad nauseum, can get kind of old.  And frankly, that’s not really who I am.  I AM someone who looks for the positive in things.  I AM someone, who even in mourning, turns around to see how this can lift us up, draw us closer.  But still, dark days and dark thoughts hit me a LOT right now.  Sometimes they come out of nowhere, like last week, when some dear neighbors came to care for the kids, so I could just lie down and have a good cry.  Sometimes I wake up in the morning, feeling sad, lonely, and depressed, like this morning.

I keep thinking, what if this doesn’t make me stronger?  Every day, I feel more and more beat up, even by the little things, by the two sick babies who are filling my house with bodily fluids.  By the 9 month old puppy we were crazy enough to adopt who USED to be potty trained, but seems to have accidents in the hallway on a near daily basis.  By the car battery that unexpectedly died.  By the news that Kevin might have to take a leave from his job to struggle through treatment.  By the stack of dishes in the sink, and the pile of laundry in the hallway.  Every day, I feel weaker, not stronger.  I feel SO. WEAK.

I think about it a lot, and I guess I AM stronger in some ways than I was before this all started.  I laugh at things more than cry because it’s all just so ridiculous at this point.  I suppose that’s stronger.  When I think I can’t push through a second longer, I get a call that there’s been a work emergency and Kevin will have to stay late and so I figure out how to push through and get the kids and myself fed and taken care of.  I guess that’s stronger.  Then, because he has to go back in for the rest of the weekend, I do it all over again, when I feel that I’d already used up every. last. bit. of strength I’d had the day before.  But I suppose I’m stronger, because I DO make it through, I DON’T collapse into a pile of tears.  I can’t.  There are diapers to be changed, messes to be cleaned up, children to be fed, and bless them, to be cuddled and played with.  But I don’t FEEL stronger.  I feel weary.  I feel tired.  I feel weak.

I feel weaker each day.  And this morning, I found this verse.  Some of you may know it already.

 

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I remember it had been posted by someone on my Facebook wall at some point, and I had scribbled the verse down, meaning to look it up, copy it down and paste it up around my house.  Well this morning, in my depression, I turned to the Lord (why do I not turn to Him more often?  Hmmm, maybe that’s another of the reasons He allows us to go through these things).  I opened my Bible and looked up the verse that was scribbled on a notepad by my computer.  God’s grace is sufficient.  Okay, that part I get.  We talk about that a lot.  But His power is made perfect in weakness?  OUR weakness is so that God’s power may rest in and on us?

That means that I’m probably not going to get stronger through all this.

It means that I’m probably going to keep getting weaker, and weaker.

And Christ will grow stronger in me.

I think I’m just starting in the smallest inklings to understand this whole dying to self thing.

And it hurts.  But I feel God’s arms wrapped SO. TIGHT. around me.  Saying, “I’ve got you.  I’m carrying you.  You can NOT do this.  But I can.”

It makes no sense to me.  Yet another of the amazing mysteries of our Creator.

Strength in weakness.

One thought on “Strength in Weakness

  1. Being in the moment is not being weak or strong – it is BEING and
    knowing that He holds me in the palm of His hand.
    Love you, Irene

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