Weakness is something that I have always feared. When I am weak, I fail. And when I fail, no one will love me. I think I learned this lesson early on in life. People only seemed to love me when I could give them something, or knew that I was doing something impressive. As I started growing older, I started to hold myself from people. I looked at myself as a failure, especially in high school. I began to close myself off so much that the lie that I wasn’t loved because of my failures, and became another reason why I started to tell myself that the way to beat my weakness and gain control was to take my own life. It was in that time that the Lord stole my heart and showed me worth outside of strength and success, and what people thought of me. After I came out of this, I began to continue to hate weakness because it made me miss how much the Lord loved me and those around me. I hated how distracted I was by weakness. But now as I have sought the Lord, I have realized that without weakness, love would not even exist. I have come to know this in two ways. The first way that I realized we wouldn't know love with our weakness is without my own weakness, I would have never met my fiancé who proves to me every day what it means to be loved even when I don’t deserve it. I had been in some relationships before I met my wonderful Anna, and I was in the midst of the darkest time in my life, and I was proving to myself that when I was vulnerable, I wasn’t loved. I think I was addicted to the fake control I had when I put myself in relationships that I knew I was being treated poorly in. When I met Anna, I was on my journey of health, and she loved me in the midst of it. And even when I am one of the worst sinners, and in my weakness treat her in a way she does not deserve, she continues to love me. I have learned that there is beauty in weakness because when you met someone who loves Jesus, they prove that even when you are the weakest of weak, they show you that there is love to see you through it all. The second way that I know that weakness is how we know love is through the truth that in the weakness of God becoming a man, and taking on human weakness and death, we would never have be welcomed into the arms of our God as sons and daughters. Jesus walked all the way to Calvary, with flesh torn from his body, carrying a cross that we would be nailed to, and in the weakness of His humanity, He died. His weakened body was taken from the cross and put in a tomb. Then, in the strength that only Jesus, the most beautiful broken human, and incredibly strong God holds, His love conquered the grave and our sin. We can say because Jesus knew weakness, He knows us deeply, and loves us deeply. Even when we are the most weak times of our lives, God’s love is strong enough to show us grace and prove to us that we aren’t only worth love in our strength.
Music:
Even When It Hurts (Praise Song)
Meal:
A bowl of ice cream, and a cup of coffee (or just one or the other)
Prayer:
Jesus, I fail you all the time. I have hurt you, hurt myself, and allowed my weakness to control me into hurting others. But in your mercy, you loved. Teach me to trust that even when I am weak I am still loved. And out of that knowledge, teach me what it means to love through weakness, and show others that you value them even when they are weak.
Time:
The next time someone treats you poorly, stop and see that you were loved by Jesus even when you were still a sinner, and show compassion and mercy, prove to that person that they deserve to be treated with love, because they are a dear child of that same God.