remarks about growth.
You know the moments. People spontaneously remark about their impressions of you, speaking words that are so thoroughly different from past comments you've heard. You find it amusing. The evidence of the newness feels wild & free. You breathe and live the change.
You embody your new strength.
I: Weak
"Okay, now everyone lift on 3, ready? 1 - 2 - 3."
Minutes earlier, when my sister said she wanted to rearrange her room, I'd darted down the hall to assist. "I can do this! I can help!" I'd chirped. "Where are we moving your bed to?"
Now, everyone was at the ready around the stocky wooden bedframe. On "3," I watched as their side lifted off. My forearms shook as if the earth was quaking; my end would not be moved by my tremors.
"No, Bekah, you can't do this. You're too weak. Daddy, let's just you and me do it."
My dad's pregnant pause expanded in the room, leaving no air for me to breathe."Bekah Beks, go ahead and play in your room, okay?" The warm wash of shame cloaked me, the weak one.
Without contention, I left. Minutes later, I heard him: "Wow! Very strong. You're amazing. Oh my goodness."
With no foiling evidence, nor counter-faith to inspire, the belief rooted in me, playing on repeat inside me for almost two decades and bolstered by my scoliosis diagnosis: I am weak.
II. Strong
Twenty-four years have transpired since that day. Now, rewriting the story's events, I can't blame my father. He was concerned for my safety and tired of managing sister-on-sister attacks. And my sister was simply reporting the evidence: today, you're body can't do this task. Tough.
I live different evidence today.
Just this morning, two grown adults stepped into my apartment to move a table down to their truck. And as we lifted, heaved, crouched and shoved, they said over and over, "Wow. You're so strong!"
When I go through difficult and shifting circumstances without losing my cool, others comment, "Whew! You're one of the most resilient people I know."
When I take on projects at work I'm not entirely sure I know how to do, my colleagues and managers say, "You really can do anything you set your mind to."
Behold this, my new identity: I am strong.
III. The Middle Bits
It's a potent before-and-after story, isn't it? It inspires hope, evokes smiles, builds admiration in the listener and pride in the teller. And it entirely misses the point.
What matters most is not where the story began and ended but rather all the bits in the middle, the decisions that strategically considered the beginning and step-by-step brought about the story's end. All the bits I have not, in fact, disclosed here. And wisely so, because despite their consequence, these parts are often much harder to tell and even more difficult to hear. They should be shared as they are and as they come: in little bits.
And so, here is one bit, arguably the lynchpin, I'll share today: In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Paul writes: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
How else could I have lived through all the bits in the middle? How, without faith in grace?
I write today, despite having not in over a year and a half, to remember. This weekend as I move out of my Carter Ave oasis where I healed after experiencing years of true debilitating weakness, I am so grateful for my strength, for my health, and for the courage that's been built in me.
Praise to you, Lord Christ.
Amen.
