These last few awareness days have been filled with living rather than writing as we enjoyed the weekend…started a busy week, and I prepared for a speaking engagement because some time ago, I committed to speak to a group of women about Chase, cancer, and hope.
In all honesty, by a few weeks ago, I was strongly considering a cowardly call to the women’s ministry director with the words “I can’t. I simply can’t.” For when life comes at me like a whirlwind or a physical assault, the last thing I want to do is talk – let alone to a group of people. When the stress sits on my shoulders like a weight and the heartache of disappointment or loss squeezes tight, sometimes I can’t talk and even when I can, I gut-honestly don’t want to talk about the goodness of God when I’m not feeling it – not because I don’t believe it to be true and poignantly real, but because I’m just so weary. The litany in my tired brain is this: No more. Please, no more… I don’t have the energy to be strong right now.
But here’s the thing… when I am weak, HE is strong. Pretending to be anything other than the weak, hot mess I am does a great disservice to the God who made me, calls me by name, and has promised to complete the good work he started in me.
So, in faith, in the dust of my broken pieces, I took those ladies these words:
The further into this life journey I go, the more convinced I am that authenticity in our brokenness is a key component of gospel growth and gospel encouragement. For truly, we are painfully needy and will remain so until the day we see Him face to face.
That’s it. Be real in the pain. God I’m needy, but you aren’t. You know what I need better than I do myself. Help me to accept this truth and feel peace in it when this discouragement threatens to overwhelm.
And then wait… wait for Him with great hope because you never know how moving forward in obedience and faith will encourage your heart to keep going for just one more day.
Moment by moment.
Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8-10
Elle when I found this passage I immediately thought of you!
“Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul & my body with grief. Psalm 31:9
I kept this, read it often , good reminder of things in the past, but still in memory always. Love, Jolene