Weakness

I can't sleep, and tonight I started thinking about Kelly. My friend Kelly lost her precious baby girl Jamie to cancer back in January. Jamie was only five months old. The experience, of course, was devasating for everyone who knew the family. But Kelly has faced this with incredible grace and poise. I know there are the times we don't see. I know there must be so much pain and heartache still. Yet Kelly has truly demonstrated the way a person's faith in God can sustain them and carry them through the darkest valleys. With Kelly, it's not just a cliche. She's a living testimony.

I've thought a lot lately about the way suffering, heartache, tragedy reveal the hidden things inside us, and reveal what we're made of. Honestly, this has been troubling me, because I don't like what's inside of me. I feel as if -- well, I am not Kelly. I am a sloppy, over-emotional, self-centered, prideful mess at times. If I were a biblical character, I'd be doubting Thomas. I'd be Jonah running away. I don't feel like a "pillar of strength" very often. I have a tendency to be negative and fearful. I overthink everything and have trouble relaxing. In the midst of all this, I keep thinking, "How? How can I do this?" How do I, a person who used to stay up at night worrying about silly work deadines, not stay up at night worrying about Ethan's future? How does this person who used to sink to the lowest depths if someone offended me or if I made a wrong choice not sink down low if Ethan regresses in certain areas and I can't seem to find the right solution to help him? How does this person who has always had trouble controlling her emotions (including crying at every job she ever had) stay strong and not break down in front of her family (at least, not all the time)? How does this person who always pleaded, "Please God, please don't ever let me have to deal with autism in my children" take the cup that has been given me and live with joy, not bitterness?

Sometimes the questions pile up and then I lie awake at night waiting for answers. What's even harder is when there are no answers, no quick fix. There are so many Christians I know these days who are waiting for the quick fix, to go in a prayer line and just magically get delivered from their problems, but instead what comes to me is just a verse. It's on a billboard in Hartford right now: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

In those words I find peace but also frustration. You mean, I have to work my way through this? You mean, it's a process and it's going to be hard, God? I have never been one to want to work through things and push myself to do something painful. Exercise would be just one of many examples.

I know more than ever that I cannot do this on my own, and I cannot do this in my own strength. Overcoming will involve God working through me, because my own natural self has not been wired to be an overcomer.

His grace is sufficient. In the midst of my tears, as I sit here tonight in a quiet house, exhausted from thinking about what I could do better, differently, so Ethan would tone down his flare up of obessions lately and become less anxious.

His power is made perfect in my weakness. When I want to give up, give in, lose hope, or sink low.

The second part of that verse concludes: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." I don't know if I can "boast" about being the way I am. But I have to be completely honest...with myself, with my friends, with God. This is my mess. These are the raw materials that I am praying with time and trust will be made into something much more beautiful.