Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. ~The Apostle Paul

Paul wrote this in a letter after telling the church in Corinth (Greece) that he had been struggling with a vice and had asked God three times to remove it (apparently, saying something 3 times in Greek is like shouting or writing it in italics). It was something terrible, perhaps physical, perhaps emotional. Whatever it was, Paul struggled with it for a long time, and he hated it, but through this he learned how to trust God more, as the passage above implies.
Now, I am not trying to make Paul's thorn seem less important or serious by comparing it to mine, but I am struggling with something hard now too. I REALLY doubt that it is worse or as bad as his was, but that does not mean it is easier to deal with. It's making everyday life more complicated, it's testing my patience and endurance, and it's making me question my dreams, and future plans. I have always thought that dreams are good things-they are gifts from God. Most of my dreams require the action that this thorn is taking away from me: to walk the hippy trail, to hitch hike across the U.S.A. with a true friend (sappy, I know, but a dream's a dream), to rescue Sudanese children from captivity. Is this thorn God's way of showing me that these are not the dreams He wants me to chase? Or is He just telling me to be patient, to bear the pain silently, and to look towards brighter tomorrows with fresh hope? He hasn't told me what it is yet. I do know, however, that His mercies are new every morning. I know that this pain is only temporary,and that though I may be weak physically, I can be strong spiritually.




Lydia