Finding strength in weakness

Scripture reference for the week:

2 Corinthians 8-11

Paul was feeling weakness, “a thorn in his flesh,” and he says:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The life of a mom is exhausting! We are pulled in so many different directions. We take care of our houses, our husbands, our children, other family members and our friends too. Then, we throw in the time that we spend volunteering in our community. And some of us also have jobs (part time or full time). We are teachers, tutors, chauffeurs, nurses, cleaning ladies, cooks, coaches…. The list goes on and on.

We take care of our immediate families, but we try to nurture our relationships with our other family members as well.

Then, of course, it is very important to take time to spend with our friends. So we add birthday lunches, baby showers, children’s birthday parties, wedding showers and weddings into our schedules (All wonderful events that we enjoy very much, but it’s something else we factor into our busy schedules).

We do the present shopping for birthdays, new babies, weddings and Christmas. We send the sympathy cards, the congratulations cards and the thinking of you cards. Moms take care of everyone else, and we find little time to take care of ourselves!

Then life gets a little more stressful when our children get sick, or when God forbid, we get sick. As my husband says, “Mommy CANNOT get sick. If mommy gets sick, the whole operation shuts down!” How true this is! But even when we get sick, we can’t lie in bed and take care of ourselves. We just continue trucking through the day because we HAVE to and we WANT to.

Now don’t get me wrong. Life is exhausting for ALL of us, women and men alike, no matter what stage of life we are currently experiencing.

It can be exhausting for women who are moms and for women who aren’t moms. And life can be exhausting for men who are dads and for men who aren’t dads. We ALL do too much in a day and wear ourselves out. And sometimes we just feel weak!

Sometimes my weekly schedule makes me feel weak.  I’ll bet that most of you feel the same way. Do you ever get exhausted on a Sunday night just thinking about your schedule and all that you will be doing the following week? It’s amazing that we fall asleep on a Sunday night!

And if you haven’t thought about your daily schedule, take a few moments to think about it. What does it look like? It probably looks a lot like mine (This is not an attempt to complain. I count all of my blessings daily and love EVERYTHING that I do, but it just shows how busy we ALL are.):

Schedule:

Wake up, feed dogs, feed children, get kids dressed for day, clean up dishes and house…out the door for morning adventure (park, science museum, zoo, library, etc.), or get oldest out the door for preschool two mornings a week (I’m so thankful for my husband who takes our little one to school for me). After the morning adventures, we come home, eat lunch together and play. Then I get our children ready for naps. The babysitter arrives (She is one of my many blessings from God), and I leave for work during naptime so that I don’t miss much time with the kids.

I am the youth director at our church. So I head to church and work on children and youth programs, as well as help to run some of them. I arrive home at 6:00 most nights (except for Wednesdays and Fridays when I help with youth group…And don’t forget about the weekend events when I am participating in an outreach program with our church children, which I love doing, by the way). When I get home I play with the kids (swords, build towers, review flash cards, color, play outside)…Then I feed the children dinner and maybe take a family walk with my husband, children and dogs…We give the children baths and read, pray, sing and kiss children good night. Now, around 8:00, my husband and I cook dinner. We eat, talk, watch a little TV and clean up. We get ready for bed, and then I start writing (working on books and freelance articles), or I work on things for church. I go to bed around 11:00 p.m. Phew! I know you all can relate.

Now, add in the days where we volunteer in the community, go to functions for organizations, attend meetings for organizations about which we are so passionate, and we attend dinners and parties.

Yes, the daily schedule of life can make many of us feel weak.

But nothing makes one feel weaker than poor health. It can be physically and mentally exhausting!

It wasn’t until this past year that I experienced that type of weakness first hand. For several months I felt like I had run a marathon and I had not. The many symptoms I experienced made me feel like my body was shutting down. I went through multiple tests with several different doctors, thinking that only the worst was happening to me. The unknown made me feel extremely weak and absolutely helpless.

I felt a bit pathetic that I could not do the things that I once did and felt even worse that whatever was happening to me was out of my control. And when my test results seem to confirm that everything was fine, (“I’m just doing too much,” the doctors said.) my mindset completely changed.

I vowed to myself that from that day forward I would count every day as a blessing and try harder not to complain or worry about the small stuff (which can still sometimes be difficult).

Only my best friends knew about this difficult time, as I did not want anyone else to view me as weak.

Weakness is not something to be proud of or discussed, I thought.

But it was this verse from the Bible that a friend (Thanks, Josh) shared with me above that made me realize that it’s o.k. to be weak or to feel week, because it is when we are weak that we rely on God and that we turn to him more than anyone or anything else.

So take a moment to examine your life. What is it that makes you feel weak? Your busy schedule (I can relate), a nagging pain in your body or bones that just doesn’t seem to go away, having cancer, going through chemo, having a friend or family member who has cancer, your financial situation, a separation or divorce, a death in the family, the fact that you are alone, the fact that you can’t get pregnant one more time (or even a first time)?

We try to hide our weaknesses from everyone, but we can’t hide them from God. He knows when we feel weak and he rejoices in the fact that we need him, and no one else, when we feel weak and feel like hiding away and being by ourselves.

And so I encourage you, since we know that God knows our weaknesses, to turn to him. I promise you that your soul will feel restored.  You will find new strength in depending on the Lord when no one and nothing else seems to be giving you the strength that you need.