Weakness.

What a simple but dirty sounding word. Heads of companies ask you to list yours during job interviews, therapists want you to talk about them, and lets face it, even though you may try not to, there’s a slight chance you see them glaring back at you when you look at yourself in the mirror after a rough day.

This week is far from over, but boy has it been a doozy. Do people say that anymore? I don’t know. But yea. It has been one of those weeks where my weaknesses, my vulnerabilities have come out and placed themselves smack dab in the middle of my day-to-day and beat me up a little. The result: I’m unfocused. Unmotivated. Tempted to let my day to day responsibilities slide to the bottom of my priority list because honestly, I just want to dwell in the way that I am feeling and let that be all that there is right now.

I’m reacting. Everything feels like chaos and I can’t really figure out how to clean it up, and because of that I’m kind of throwing an emotional tantrum. I say emotional because it’s invisible to everyone who looks at me. I do a really good job at appearing calm and under control, because that is who I am. But internally there’s a whole lot of foot stomping and whining going on.

I hate when my weaknesses show. Everyone does. I especially hate it because it threatens the “I can handle it” facade that I hide behind. It threatens to not just show the world, but remind me that I am simply a small person who cannot handle the woes of this world. Why can’t I handle them? Because, I wasn’t designed to do so. When I try to, I feel heavy, burdened and tired. And eventually, I trip. I fall over the load I was trying to carry alone.

I believe God gives us talents and skills and responsibilities to use in partnership with Him. He has given me this very strange gift of leadership. I don’t understand it, and I don’t always want it. But from the time He made me the first-born in my home He knew what He was doing. I, however, being very human, do the human thing and I take that gift, and I run with it. I dress it up and shape it and mold it and try to make it mine on my own and wonder why I’m exhausted. It’s because I forgot the purpose of it, to use in union with Him. It’s like trying to use a remote without the batteries. How are you going to get the TV to turn on? Yea, you could get up and turn it on and use the buttons on the side to flip through the hundreds of channels, but that’s a lot of work. And, as every millennial knows, why the heck would you go through all of that work, when there’s a remote, designed specifically for the purpose of making that whole task a lot easier? It’s the same thing with those gifts and talents God gives us. We can do them on our own, whether it’s worship leading, encouraging others, leading others, teaching or whatever else, and we may be successful at it. But what happens at the burn out? When your weaknesses show their face? When you’re tired, worn out and feeling beat up and just so sick of putting in all of the effort everyday? What then? What if, instead of waiting till the burn out stage to say “Hey, I forgot, this is actually yours, here ya go”, we just dedicated our gifts and skills to God everyday and said, “Heya, good morning. Thanks for the ability to (insert here), help me to use this everyday for you”. I bet, we would be a lot less tired, a lot less discouraged and a lot less shaken up when our weaknesses poke their heads in to check on us. I bet instead of being knocked down, we’d gesture over our shoulder and say “I’m not worried, He’s got it.”

I’m going to try to remind myself of that more often. Maybe you will too. Best of luck my friends!

Stay Lovley,

Nicole

 

 

 

 

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