The Gift of Weakness

Well, I'm still here. May is normally a busy month in our house, but this year's May takes the cake! There was little time for pondering, and even less time for writing. But God was kind to sustain us through the busyness, and now we're in to June, with the 2011-12 school year behind us and a calendar that is (currently) relatively clear, so I hope to be able to spend a lot more time reading and writing (and cleaning and organizing and planning activities to help keep the kids occupied).

Due to various issues related to busy schedules, health problems and parenting troubles, I've been thinking quite a bit this past year about weakness and how to count it all joy. This morning, I was rereading a bit of Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick. (If you are a parent and haven't read it, I highly encourage you to put it on your summer reading list - I've found it very helpful, not only for relating to my kids, but also for my own understanding of how the Gospel relates to my practical daily life.) Here is her challenge from 2 Corinthians 12:

"Paul understood that personal success and strength were barriers to his experience of God's grace. God's sustaining power is seen and developed in our weakness and failure. It is never developed anywhere else. The power of Christ flows through parents who boast in and embrace their personal weakness, not on those who think they don't need it. Of course, every one of us will quickly confess that we know we need the power of Christ. Yes, yes, of course we do. But the veracity of our confident confession will be tested in our response to our weakness and failure and to the weakness, failure and sin of our children. Do we see these trials as God's gift to us? Do we see our children's struggles as our Saviour approaching us in love to make his grace strong in our lives? Do we believe that we must have this kind of humiliation so that Christ's grace will flow through us to our family? Do we really want his grace that much? Do we really want to glorify him?"