Strength of weaknessBy Joyce M. Bell
I wanted to kill myself but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have an excuse because there was bleach and a razor blade in the house. I wanted to leave this world and the miserable state of mind that I was in, but I found that I was not strong enough to do it. I was too ‘weak’ to take my own life. I begged God to please take me! I didn’t want to be here on this earth another day! Please…don’t let me wake up in the morning, I pleaded! And I meant it…from the depths of my soul, I meant it!
Years later, thinking back on that day, I now realize that my weakness – my total helplessness in that hour prompted God to reveal His Strength in my life as I had never seen it before. Now I fully understand the Word of God that says, ‘my strength is made perfect in weakness for when I am weak then I am strong’ (2 Corn 12:9-10). I woke up the next day to a phenomenal thing. My weakness, overshadowed with the Strength of God, produced…a miraculous change!
You see, up until that point I believed that any achievements, any challenges that were overcome, any accomplishments attained, had come about because ‘I’ was a strong person. ‘I’ took the credit for my existence and ability to persevere against the odds. ‘I’ was still standing and surviving because I believed that I must have come from ‘strong stock’. I am a woman, a ‘strong’ woman, I told myself, not a child! I will survive! I poked my chest out, wore with pride invisible badges for being an overcomer and patted myself on the back, often. But it was in that hard time that I began to understand what Jesus meant when He said, ‘…except we humble ourselves and become as a little child we would not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt 18:3-4). The Word of God is so clear! What can a little child do for themselves? Nothing! They must rely on their parents for everything.
In that revealing hour, one of the biggest hurdles I had to jump was to ‘admit’ that without the Strength of God in my life, I would literally crumble from the ‘weight’ of living. David did it. Throughout the Old Testament David – the brave, David – the bear and lion killer, David – the giant slayer, David – the collector of 100 Philistines foreskins, declares that the credit for every victory in his life belongs to God. And I am particularly drawn to Ps 27:1 & 13-14 where he says, ‘The Lord is the strength of my life…I would have fainted(become weak and passed out) ‘if’ I had not believed to see the goodness(the power, the might, the strength)of the Lord in the land of the living…the Lord…He will strengthen…’ David was a mighty warrior and great king but without the Strength of God He was nothing and He was able to let go of self(ego), become humble(as a child) before our God and admit it.
Thus, from the Word of God I’ve learned that I only have the ability to go through each day because of the Strength of God! Jesus…He is my Strength! I have none of my own. I never had any of my own and it took that awful day in my life for me to accept this truth. Of myself I am nothing but, because I lean entirely on His Strength, I am enabled to function. His Strength keeps my mind regulated. His Strength leads and directs me as I perform my daily tasks. His Strength empowers me to write…of Him. Everything I do it is by and through…His Strength!
Oh, how I do thank God for that day! That hour…when my back was up against a wall and I succumbed to a place of total strength-less-ness. For now, Praise God, this strength-less individual is secure in the fact she is Strengthened each and every day by Almighty God.
Weakness saved my life. Weakness brought me through. Weakness let me see how Strong God is and how I am nothing but a piece of chaff on the wind, without Him. With every breath He gives, I Thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that in those defining moments my weakness illuminated…His Strength.
Joyce M. Bell is a 72 year-old Christian Author, Poet, Writer and Artist. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
