“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 (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Recently, I was hospitalized for 4 days.
The week prior I was walking normally with minimal pain, then woke up not being able to put any weight on my left leg without completely collapsing. By mid week, in the middle of the night, I woke up in a hysterical panic not being able to turn, lift or move my head.
After an intense ER visit, multiple scans, visits to the doctor and chiropractor, it was determined that I had a flare up of my auto immune condition and just needed “rest.”
To make matters more pressing, I was planning to check into the hospital just two days after the incident for a GI procedure and needed to confirm that I was indeed moving forward with everything.
I was given one hour to think about it and decide.
Immediately my mind went ablaze. What if I can’t move? Or this happens again? What if I react to the procedure or worse? Thought after thought, worry after worry consumed me.
Then I remembered the rhythm of grace: pause, breathe, pause and pray, every thought offered to God, every single one.
I paused, took a deep breath, paused and began to pray.
I waited for God to respond to my many anxious thoughts and what I heard surprised me.
“Daughter, my grace is sufficient for you.”
“Daughter, my hand is upon you.”
I started to list every thought out loud to the Lord and asked him to remove my anxiety. As I did, I realized most of my thoughts were centered on how I felt I was failing my family and friends by being disabled.
I wept quietly and saw ever so clearly how little grace I was giving myself for this situation. I was walking through the valley with a mindset of scarcity instead of sufficiency and mistaking my physical weakness for inadequacy.
As I turned to 2 Corinthians 12:9, I noticed how beautifully Paul wrote about the truth of God’s grace.
“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.
Paul was so confident in the significance of God’s grace that he was able to not only rest and allow God’s power to work through his hardships, but boast graciously about his weaknesses allowing them to be a testimony of God’s sufficiency.
After reading that, I repeated the rhythm.
Pause. Breathe. Pause. Pray
This time God helped me realize that no matter what I chose to do or would end up doing, he would be with me and I didn’t have to earn my value through overcompensation or by what I could do for my family. Rather he showed me that even in my physical weakness I was significant, and God’s power was being perfected in my perceived lacking.
I ended up moving forward with the procedure and everything went better than expected and about a week later I was almost 80% recovered. Praise the LORD!
Daughter, God’s grace is sufficient for you. Whether it’s a season of depletion, or demand where you feel you have been given much more than you can handle, God’s hand is upon you and his grace is freely given to you exactly for the season you are facing. Your weakness is not a sign of inadequacy but a divine opportunity for his power to move through you and be sufficient enough to carry you through to the other side.
Esther “Annie” Rhoades is a mom to three, wild and free kids and has been happily married to her best friend, Jon, for over 10 years. Annie values experience over things and loves yoga with worship music, diving into the word, hosting, thrifting, making healthy goodies, and traveling.