As I was reading my Bible this morning, this is the part of scripture that spoke to me:
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 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. 10 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.
Before I even got out of bed this morning, I was laying there thinking about how my life is nothing like I ever thought it would be - daily working at a job that I dread and that stresses me out completely, waking up every weekend to the sound of children that I didn't give birth to stemming from an affair that my husband had many years ago, and struggling with a huge lack of self-esteem that fuels an eating disorder. I often wonder why is all of this happening to me? I certainly didn't ask for any of it, but what have I done to deserve all of this? The scripture above pretty much sums it all up; the struggles in our lives are what keep us close to Christ. If I didn't have any issues in life, I wouldn't need God - I could do life all on my own. It's in my struggles that I find myself crying out to the Lord to help me! Help me deal with this stressful job, help me love these other children as my own, help me to love myself that You created! Often, when others hear my story, they will say that I must be a really strong person to deal with everything and in that moment, it gives me an opportunity to tell them that it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Christ. If it were up to me and my own strength, I'd probably be serving a life sentence in a GA prison, but thankfully, I have a God that I can cry out to in my times of weakness and tap into His Power that lives in me! Philipians 4:13 says that "I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength." So, in your times of struggles, use them as an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with Christ and for His mighty power to shine through your weakness!
Teresa Houle
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