The weakness in that strength ....

The weakness in that strength…………… This was said at church on Sunday and I have been thinking about it since then. I even wrote it down in my phone that day. The phrase impacted me.

When God created us he wired us with gifts, abilities, and strengths. And within your God given strength there is a weakness and I believe if you are not grounded in the Lord you can succumb to that weakness. Satan will use it to try and destroy you, if he can get to you through it.   This really made me think about how I am wired and the DNA God created me with. That DNA is the same as it was before I became a Christian.

For a long time I didn’t want to reflect on my past in any way because I feared I would get angry and bitter so I concealed the neglect and ultimately the abuse locking it away deep within. I honestly was scared when all the pain and dysfunction I had survived came into the light I would be a different person completely. And although I was a total mess, I liked who I was on some level  . I have always been compassionate and kind, I liked that about myself. Even as a child my heart hurt for those who were hurting.  I was scared I would lose that part of me for some reason. I was scared if I unlocked that box of hidden pain and shame within me, anger would take over.  But what I learned is the compassion and mercy that I liked about myself is how God created me before I was born, it was wired in and part of who I was.  And when I cleaned up the mess that I had become and surrendered to HIM the strengths HE put within me only grew stronger.   As I grew stronger in the Lord I could then deal with the weakness that comes with that strength.  Before I had the Lord the weakness overpowered me and  it caused me to hurt myself and ultimately hurt others.

I believe the weakness that comes with compassion and mercy (at least where I am concerned) is being overly sensitive and that can create problems if you don’t keep it in check, if you’re not rooted in the love of God.  To be compassionate you have to be sensitive to the needs of others but if you are too sensitive you become overwhelmed. The last year I taught Special Education there was a boy named Michael that had many problems but he was such an overcomer and I admired him so. He was born with cerebral palsy and only had partial movement in his arms, he could maneuver his electric wheelchair with accuracy most of the time but it took a lot of concentration. His parents had died in a car accident when he was younger and he had been raised by his grandmother until she couldn’t’ lift him anymore to change his diaper. He had to have a kidney transplant as well.  When I taught him he lived in a group home but was being moved to a nursing home because the group home didn’t have the equipment or man power to handle him. As I would take him down to change him he would cry to me because he didn’t want to go to the nursing home and my heart broke.  I hated seeing him in pain but there was nothing I could do about that, all I could do was love him . I tried to create a positive place for him but I was so messed up I didn’t succeed.  I felt like such a failure.  It was so overwhelming and through it all I would get angry with myself.  I was reeling from the loss of my sister,  using meth daily, and when I looked at him I hated myself because compared to him I saw myself as so fortunate. It is so very dangerous to compare yourselves to others.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.                Max Ehrman

This was a no win situation . My sensitivity prompted me to care and have compassion for him but since I didn’t have the Lord it drove me to feel so guilty about my own circumstances that I just numbed myself more as I spiraled deeper and deeper  into my addiction.

Today I am a different person and of course I am still wired the way God created me in the first place with the same compassion and mercy. And I am still sensitive (  that is a part of it)   but it doesn’t overwhelm me anymore. I can put all my feelings into  perspective and there is no guilt or condemnation. That is what happens when we surrender to God , HE empowers the strengths HE created us with to fulfill the purpose HE created us for !! That is what is on my heart today :)