My Source Of Strength In Suffering

My Source Of Strength In Suffering

My life is an example to many, because you have been my strength and protection. –Psalm 71:7

One of the most amazing aspects of our experience with Hope and Gabe was how it brought people into our lives and gave us an almost instant closeness with them because of the intensity and intimacy of the experience. Julie Dilworth came every Monday, and she sent me this e-mail the Monday after Hope died:

NANCY:

Well it is Monday and I miss Hope, and I know by next week it will be much worse. I want to thank you for giving me the privilege of knowing her. I feel like I am one of the privileged few who really miss HER. I barely even knew you all, and you let me have a piece of your time with her. I am very grateful to you and humbled by that.

Later Julie told me that a lasting impact of spending time with us during those difficult days was that she came away with less fear about the future. “I saw that you are an ordinary person and that God gave you the strength you needed. So I now believe that if I have to go through something like that, he will give me the strength I need when I need it.”

I love that! This is part of the privilege given to those of us who suffer under scrutiny. We have the opportunity to put the faithfulness of God on display to those around us—not because we are strong people with strong faith, but because we are weak in courage and weak in faith. God gives us his strength in our weakness, so “that everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Our lives become the canvas on which God draws a picture of these words (originally given to the hurting apostle Paul): “My power works best in your weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Are you physically weak, emotionally spent, spiritually insufficient for what you are facing? God delights in supplying his strength to weak people. Won’t you ask him to fulfill his promise of sufficient grace and supernatural strength for whatever may come?

Spirit of strength, my strength has run out, and I am weak and vulnerable. Would you give me the supernatural strength only you can provide? Would you give me what I need to persevere in hardship with joy and peace so that those around me are amazed by your faithfulness and sufficiency?

DIGGING DEEPER