My weakness and His strength

Do you ever get to the point where you have had enough? Where you truly come to the end of your flesh? You know that point where you honestly come before God and say "I want to do what you are asking me to do, but I can't do it in my flesh. I need Your strength." Or sometimes there's the "I don't want to do what You are asking me and seriously doubt my ability to do that anyway, so You're gonna have to change my heart AND give me the strength the do what You're asking me.." These are truly conversations that happen in my head (well, i might whine a little more in my head but you get the point).  This semester has been filled with more of these conversations than in any previous semester.  

Honestly, these conversations hurt. If you have had these experiences you know what I'm talking about. We as humans really like to rely on our flesh and would rather avoid painful experiences, but Jesus is changing my heart towards wanting to avoid hard things-so much to the point that trials are almost exciting.  Because I know that after the pain and tears I will know God's love in such a deeper way.  That doesn't mean that the process isn't difficult.  This process in my life looks something like this: First, comes the revelation of my sin-followed by tears.  Then I have to humbly confess it and not just to God, but to a trusted friend(s)-more tears. Then this is when Jesus' beauty is a little more evident because my friends can speak correction and encouragement into the sin in my heart-more tears at the revelation of His beauty. Jesus meets me in the mess of my heart and shines a new light.  A transforming light. It hurts, but there is beauty (and joyful tears) to be found there.

This past semester has very much been about God clearly displaying the weakness of my flesh and my inability to do what God is asking, and all about God's strength.  When I cannot walk anymore, He carries me.  This is the relationship we have:  He asks me to do something and I say "No thanks God, I'm clearly too weak for that." BUT, when you tell God you are too weak for something then you better be careful because He is likely to lead you to do that very thing and His strength will be clearly on display the whole time. It's like He is flexing His muscles. After I tell Him no thanks, He proceeds to change my heart AND gives me the strength to do it.

So, what was the biggest lesson I learned this semester?  I am incredibly weak and God is incredibly strong. Paul had some thoughts on this...

"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." 2 Corinthians 12:9

Where is the Beauty?

²⁷ Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. ²⁸ They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, ²⁹ and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. ³⁰ They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. ³¹After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. 

Matthew 27:27-31

God has been challenging me to see what His beauty really looks like.  It is easy to see His beauty when things are easy and going "right".  It is easy to see His beauty when the sun is shining, birds are singing, and big puffy white clouds are floating overhead.  It is easy to see His beauty in a child's smile who knows they are safe and dearly loved by their parents. It is easy to see His beauty in the scriptures when it describes Jesus sitting among the people and children, listening intently to Him preach.

But is there beauty when it's rain in coming down so hard that you can't see?  Where is the beauty in the death of a loved one, when someone is sexually assaulted, when suffering comes, when darkness seems to be inescapable?  Where is the beauty when evil seems to be overtaking all good things?  Where is the beauty in the King of the World, the One who loves perfectly, comes in flesh to this world and is stripped naked?  Where is the beauty when the One who holds my heart has blood dripping down His forehead from a crown of thorns? These things don't seem beautiful, but it is there we just have to look closer.

In my Jesus' nakedness and the dripping blood, my God is showing me His love.  He is in the process of writing the greatest love story I will ever know.  That a perfect God would send His perfect Son to earth, knowing that ones He came to save would beat Him close to death and hang Him on a cross to die.  Then three days after dying, the Son would rise.  He would come back to life, conquering death.  Showing that even in pain, suffering, and death, God's love could not be hidden.  His beauty cannot be hidden. 

Even in the ugly of the world, God uses suffering to draw us ever nearer to Him. Where is the beauty in death? Death of loved one means that they finally get to experience Heaven, a place where there is no pain or suffering. And those remaining on earth must rely even more on God. Where is the beauty in sexual assault? It can bring life into the world and that baby can bless a family who couldn't have a baby on their own. Or the process of healing from the assault could lead the survivor to know Jesus for the very first time.  I am not saying that these things are not devastating and cause your entire world to change. They are incredibly difficult things to experience and require a process of grieving, but there is beauty to be found in even the ugliest of situations.

So when things look ugly and terrible on the surface, if the situation looks awful and painful, full of darkness, I am learning to look deeper. I am learning to look with the eyes Jesus died to give me.  That does not mean I don't weep over the pain or that my heart doesn't break when I see these things.  But with these new eyes He has given me, God is unveiling a deeper beauty that causes me to fall ever deeper in love with the One who made ALL THINGS beautiful.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11

A Story of Healing...

If you know me and/or have been following my blog for any amount of time you know how my heart breaks for children who have been abused, orphaned, trafficked, or anything such as those. The greatest desire of my heart is to be God's hands and feet to help these children find true healing from all the evil that has been done to them.  So when I read this post my heart broke and then was filled with joy and amazement at the stories of redemption that God writes.  His stories hold more beauty then we could possibly image.


"And every day I'm thankful that I've been rescued and that my life has been redeemed by the God who can make beauty from a mess. And I'm thankful for a family who became His hands and feet to reach out with a love that heals—reached out to the likes of me." 

Read the rest here --> http://www.truewoman.com/?id=2048