Strength in Community
Battles are so daily, aren’t they? Battles for health. Battles for our families. For our faith. Battles for others’ souls. For our mental health. Our finances. Our longings! We’re often bombarded with distractions and opposition to our needs and longings day in and day out. Some days, the battles leave us wringing out the emotional sweat of our souls. And we flop into bed at the end of the day thinking, “How am I going to get through another battle tomorrow?”
Strength in Vulnerability
How often, when we need help, do we think to ourselves, “I just need to suck it up and do it. I should be able to figure this out. I must succeed on my own. I have to hold back the darkness and be strong. I don’t want to burden someone else with my stuff.” We deny ourselves the gift that vulnerability brings us: connection with God and others.
Strength in Daily Practice
When our children were very young, we began a daily practice around our dinner table called High/Lows, where we each shared what our High for the day was, and what our Low was. The Highs were those things that brought us joy or made us smile, made us feel energized, empowered, and happy.
Strength for Today and Hope for Tomorrow
In Psalm 31, David pens his own lyrics of the magnificence of God: the LORD is our refuge and deliverer, our rescuer, our fortress. He listens, leads, and guides. (Can you hear the music of David’s hymn crescendoing here?) He is trustworthy, faithful, and saves me with His hesed (steadfast) love.
Oh LORD, Give Me Strength!
As so many kids have now gone back to school via virtual learning, I imagine this “give me strength” prayer has burst forth from many a parental lip. Unless someone is an experienced homeschooler or knows the ins and outs of distance learning, this prayer is most certainly an accompaniment to the day. Things like Zoom meetings. Google Classroom. Scanning homework. Managing “seat work,” while keeping a wiggling, early-elementary student from distracting their middle school sibling across the room.
It’s Worth It
During a dark period, Paul confided to the Corinthians: “We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.”
