Weakness

Today, I had one of those conversations with a friend where suddenly your life becomes clear and you understand some of the things that had been completely confusing you for weeks. Since getting home from Hungary, I’ve found that I feel so crippled and fearful all of the time. In everything I do, an overwhelming sense of fear grips my heart to the point where it is almost impossible to do anything. Even things as simple as going to class or going to church seem too overwhelming. I had attributed this mostly to readjusting to life in America—something I still think is a crucial factor—but I had a revelation on an even deeper spiritual level today.
The verse that I’ve been holding onto during this last month and a half has been 2 Corinthians 12:9—“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in your weakness.’” This verse was relevant because I learned so much about the grace of God while I was in Hungary, and I knew that His grace was sufficient. However, what struck me today about this verse was that we experience His grace in two ways—in His power and in our weakness. I have never experienced the grace of God as displayed in His power so radically as I did when I was in Hungary. Now, I feel I am experiencing the grace of God radically in my weakness. Right now, I’m not feeling any of God’s power—I’m feeling all of my weakness. I feel my weakness in my debilitating fear, fear that keeps me from going to group functions or even from wanting to talk to people. I feel my weakness in the broken-heartedness of missing Hungary and everyone there. I feel my weakness in the exhaustion I feel. I feel my weakness in my body, physically—in hips that are degenerating before their time. I feel my weakness in my relationship with the LORD in that I recognize I have nothing to offer Him. I am empty, and I desperately need to be filled just to wake up every morning. I feel my weakness in my silence—in not having words to speak, in not knowing what to say. I feel my weakness in school, in the Love Out Loud campaign, in my Bible study, in my church college group, in my relationships. I see and feel weakness everywhere.
I think this must be a small taste of what Job experienced. The sudden plunge from riches to poverty. In my case, however, it is mostly the plunge from spiritual riches to spiritual poverty. And yet, spiritual poverty is a deeper, and in some ways realer, richness than just experiencing His power. I have seen God move in deeper, more intimate ways than I ever saw Him move before, because I deeply feel my need for Him to move. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so weak before. Each day, however, God sustains me. He is with me in the storm. He is stripping away things from me that I didn’t even know I had. The fight is to let Him do that. Every time fear rises in my heart before going to a group event, I just have to say to myself that God will get me through. I am learning how to rely on Him for literally everything, because there is nothing that I feel capable of doing anymore.
And though it has possibly been one of the hardest months and a half of my life, I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I want the full experience of God’s grace in my life. And I love learning to rely on Him for everything, for seeing myself as I truly am and learning day in and day out that I can utterly rely on God. There is an intimacy that we are establishing where my heart rushes to Him for everything because that is all I can do. I am experiencing His presence and His love in a deeper way than ever before, because He is all I have. And that is more than enough.