The Extraction

Soft vs weak.  I was weak.  It's easy to get to a place where the line gets blurry. Being soft is important - when I say soft, I mean living out love in speech, conduct, etc.  I endeavor to be soft and so often miss that mark, but  remind myself that I am a work in progress.  Then there's plain old weak.  Weak moments tend to creep up on you.  You can be going strong all day long and then the one weak moment where you make a choice out of the weakness and then, BOOM...no bueno.  But I think about Paul and that where he says in 1 Corinithians about him become strong in his weakness b/c of God saying: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  The Message paraphrase says, "My grace is enough; it's all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness."   I like that.  It's all I need.  His grace is all I need.  His strength shows up in my weakness.  Showing weakness used to seem too "un-spiritual".  I wouldn't allow myself to show others and really just deceived myself  by not acknowledging its existence.  Pride - again, showing up in my life.  Now I am working on facing the weakness by first admitting it's there and then submitting it over and accepting His grace and strength so that I can gain a victory over it.

My moment of weakness this week:  not wanting to face the challenge of a possible disobedience moment (and therefore the need to follow through with discipline) so I just left it alone, watched my 4 year old go play on a zipline and wound up with an unexpected run to the dentist for a tooth extraction.

Well, I was definitely leaning on His grace and strength that afternoon!  And the argument in my mind that plagued me afterwards..."I should've _____"...but as I prayed I told myself to let it go and I literally had to fight to keep it out of my thoughts.  There'll always be something that we should've done but it does nothing for us to constantly rehearse our mistakes.  We must trust Him at each moment - not looking to what I could've done or should've done but knowing that He knows all and that in the end facing my weaknesses leads to me gaining His strength!  How can I lose?

I have to admit, when it was all said and done, one thing I kept thinking was about how he would look in family pictures for quite awhile...*sigh...I am going to have to get over that.  ;)  Maybe a little pride creeping through on that one, too...

Oh, well...Grace and Strength!