Writing from Weakness

I write from weakness. My book and my blogs were and are birthed out of my own life filled with joys amidst lifes’ hardships and unanswered questions. Nonetheless, the finished product of my writing can misleadingly seem like “I have it all together.” Truth be told: I am an imperfect mom with imperfect children. The difference, the game-changer: having a PERFECT and HOLY God who LIVES in me! This means if I can give him my “pen” (or my keyboard), and my thoughts, He can bring godly insight and eternal blessings of encouragement from me, a broken vessel that HE provides HOPE and HEALING to.

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To give you a glimpse of my own humanity and normalcy lately: I have one child in particular who has a hard time believing he is loved. If I am not intentionally and consistently present to kiss, hug, and hold each of my children daily, HE is the first to notice and feel the rejection. Even with the constant reassurance, he just tends to believe the lie: he is unloved.

How do I know? He used to just cry, but then he started verbalizing the lie: “You don’t love me. You don’t love me.” Again and again. Ouch. This can be very unsettling, draining, and frustrating as a parent, because it makes me feel that I haven’t measured up or done “enough.”

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I repeat to my little boy that he is SO loved and how much we cherish him. It’s a lie from the enemy to destroy him, and I can’t take it lightly. We pray that God’s truth would wash over his heart and mind. Maybe if he was an only child it would be easier? But he’s the second of four, and there is no changing that! My precious little boy needs mommy A LOT, particularly in the morning and at bedtime, to assure him that HE is LOVED. When my faith and words are not enough, I know God has it covered.

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You see, I know my son will learn one day at a time that his deepest desires and the innate human NEED to be loved can be contented in CHRIST alone. I can’t be his “all in all” or his “everything;” I come up short EVERY time. I wasn’t meant to fill that VOID, that “God-shaped vacuum” in him. What I can do: be a very important voice pointing him to the God who won’t ever leave him, whose love never runs dry. There the living water of my God can be HIS salvation, His victory, His life song of identity and belonging.

YOU TOO ARE LOVED. Do you REALLY believe that? Not just by your friends, family, or spouse. YOU ARE LOVED deeper than you can humanly conceive or fathom, bought with the price of a perfect God-man’s blood: none other than Jesus Christ. It wasn’t pretty that day; it was gory, messy and confusing even for His followers. The clarity came when He rose again and reminded the world HE is GOD and HIS perfect LOVE coupled with His interminable forgiveness is WHAT we required; HE is ALL we need. I pray for YOU to receive and believe in The Father’s love everlasting, and I pray the same for my little boy.

Spring and summer are times for planting and regrowth. A week ago we planted grass seed in our backyard and I have been faithfully watering that area a few times each day. I have to admit some days it just feels like nothing will happen. It feels like I’m wasting my time just watering dirt (and that’s exactly what it looks like to the naked eye!) The process of germination is hidden under the soil, a secret laboratory of metamorphosis! Oh if God can do this concealed work in plants, my how He desires to do it in people; yes, in the lives of us and our children!

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So there it is: writing in weakness. I don’t have it “all together” all the time AT ALL! My kids and my husband know that better than anyone! Writing has become a great outlet of personal, spiritual expression; I see it as a way for God to use my failures and life lessons to speak and minister to others. Just as my little boy is learning, it comes down to how GOD views us. My value, purpose and identity are wrapped up in my Heavenly Daddy, the secure refuge of His everlasting arms. GOD LOVES ME, and if HIS LOVE is in ME it cannot be contained; it MUST spill out to the world and reach farther to save MORE and let others know the TRUTH.

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I can’t say it any better than Paul did, a former persecutor and killer of Christians, after he gave his life to Christ:

 “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 12:9-10)

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What do you need today? Maybe, like me, you need to remember your HUMANITY and that you can’t DO it all or BE it all. The LOVE and IDENTITY that my son and ALL of us yearn for was and is meant to ONLY be satisfied in Christ! We don’t have to worry about measuring up or being WHOLE apart from HIM!

God bless you, dear ones. May His love abound in us to the extent that we long for MORE of HIM and LESS of us each day. We can each be TREES of HOPE pointing tall and strong to THE ONE who gave it all for us. I write in weakness, because my strength does not come from me: it comes from the Lord. Oh how He loves us, weaknesses and all!