Foster Care Reflections: The Joy of weakness

Dealing with varying degrees of disabilities and traumas can take its emotional toll on a momma. Especially after the holiday when you've been holding them all together because they have barely been holding on themselves. There is an ever-widening gap between the mom I thought I would be and the mom that I actually am. They outnumber me, the circumstances continue to change, and I simply can't keep up with the changing rules of the game. Yet, there was something said by a new acquaintance that brought this scripture to mind.

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  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.
2 Corinthians 12:6-10

She essentially said that maybe it was a good thing that things did not come so easily for me. It was a thought-provoking statement. When I looked over 2 Corinthians I realized she was exactly right. Sometimes our perspective is far worse than our circumstances. Now hear me out. I'm in no way downplaying or insinuating that trauma or hardship is any less devastating simply because we choose to take a positive outlook. Suffering is a very real part of life (just open your Bible to literally any book). What I am saying is what Paul said: HOW we choose to handle such suffering in this life makes all the difference. So many times I forgo the blessing by assuming that hardship means I have done something wrong, and sometimes it may very well mean just that. Yet, other times it is an opportunity for the grace and power of Christ to be displayed through my life and I am completely missing it because I am wallowing in self-pity. Bah humbug. Sometimes I miss it because I am too afraid to let go of the reins long enough to let God actually be God. Pity, control, whatever your poison, they are all sin and they all kill the soul. I grew up to believe that being weak was the worst thing a woman could ever be. This sentiment was reinforced over the course of my entire life. In fact, until my husband, it was never even safe for me to be "weak". So submission to what Paul is saying is not just a simple "yeah, sure I will hand my crisis over, God". This passage goes against everything my survival skills tell me NOT to do. Then I look at the children who come into my home and I crumble inside because I know that this will be a passage that they too will wrestle with their entire life. You know what that means? That means that God is going to knock us together over and over again until, through example, they get to see how this works through me. Weakness is strength in Him alone. As hard as it is some days I can still rejoice because we all get to learn beautiful lessons in grace, love, and true strength. It is a beautiful mess and we are in it together by His divine grace. It isn't easy, but the best things never are. Over and over He keeps reminding us that this path is never one He leaves us to walk alone. As the old African Proverb says: if you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together.
May my boastings never be in anything but His abundant mercies and grace. May I never wish away the circumstances which bring me to my knees so that He can bring me to His strength.