When My Weakness is My Strength

 ~First written while in Medellin, 

Colombia as a dispatch to our church back home~

One thought that has continually come to my mind this week in Colombia has been my weakness.

 I feel weak walking around a foreign city with traffic and busyness. I feel weak when our leaders rightly demand that women stay in the middle of the group when on the streets so the men can surround us for protection. I feel weak watching the men skillfully build things out of wood then hoist sheets of flooring up to the mezzanine. I feel weak having to ask people what a specific tool looks like. I feel weak not being able to communicate with my brothers and sisters in Christ at the seminary and the church, staring at them blankly, not sure what they are trying to tell me. I feel weak as I try to cross the street without being run over by motorcycles in a city that doesn't seem to have or obey traffic lights.

 So this morning, when I was asked to help some of our Colombian brothers and sisters to prepare our mid-morning snack, I was excited. Finally there was something I could do that I would be good at, and I could feel strong again! They put me to work squeezing tangerines as big as our oranges back home to make the most amazing juice I have ever tasted. But even in that task I didn't know what I was doing. One man, probably after watching me struggle, showed me where to properly cut the fruit, the motions my hands should make, and even how to tell if the fruit was bad (all impressively without words). He put his hands over mine, twisting the fruit to squeeze out the juice, and in that moment I realized something very simple: from construction work, to the language barrier, and even squeezing tangerines, I am clueless and weak.

 There are many things I cannot do here because I am physically weak and unskilled, and that is exactly how I am before God. I am nothing compared to Him. But 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, "...My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  God uses our weaknesses, my weaknesses, for His glory.

 So yes, I will sweep. Yes, I will collect bottles. Yes, I will hammer this nail thirty times into the wood despite the fact that any guy here could do it with two strikes. Maybe simply because God is seen in my weakness, and in my weakness I am forced to rely on Him.