The Strength I’ve Come to Trade My Weakness For

It was a warm Tuesday morning following the busy Labour Day weekend. I was both tired from the weekend’s events, yet excited to start this calling that I was only just beginning to delve into. I loved my two summer internships, I loved the organization, and I loved everything God was doing through TCM in each of the communities we’re serving. These new beginnings were a welcome change as there was no doubt this day that I was exactly where God wanted me to be. The doubts had come, of course, and I knew they would probably surface again at some point, but on Tuesday, September 4th, 2024, I had particularly thanked God for giving me a home away from home in TCM. We were at the office that day, a staff retreat and my first glimpse into what I would be part of this 2024/2025 school year. There were mixed emotions that day. I had experience with the mission and with serving at Orton Park, where I would be placed for most of my internship minus one day a week where I served at Jesse Ketchum, yet there was a sense of unfamiliarity with the staff gatherings that caused me to revert back to my shy “observation mode” not unlike my first week of Summer intern training during my first year. I mostly watched and learned that first day, but it was one of the most meaningful times in my life. We discussed how the summer went at each community, and what the curriculum for the after-school program Bible lessons would look like, we prayed, fellowshipped, and reflected on the presence of God in our ministries. My heart was full when I came home that day. After an admittedly challenging summer, this was the sort of encouragement I didn’t realize I needed, but like always, God knew and He provided what I hadn’t even known to pray for.

As programs began the following week, the feeling of determination I had developed over the summer had returned. While the word, determination, might sound promising or even praise-worthy, don’t be fooled. This determination was fuelled by doing a good job and meeting criteria in order to be able to sleep well at night. In other words, I began to rely on my own strength to attempt to power through and even cope with the challenge of increased leadership. It wasn’t until a couple of incidents that I finally understood what this more important word, Strength, had meant both in terms of ministry and my life as a whole.

Before this summer, strength had always taken the form of people. People like my mother who I had always turned to with my problems the most. People like my friend Liz who had lost her brother in a fatal car accident on the highway and yet still has joy. And people like my grandparents who always make it so our extended families have a place to come back to and be able to call home. While these people have aspects of what I discovered true strength to be, I realized that strength cannot be found, at its source, in human beings. 

It was the incidents with some of the kids at Orton Park–fighting–that had finally gotten me to realize strength was not people, and strength was not determination either. I had hit one of the lowest moments in my time at TCM so far. I knew I had made a mistake with how I handled some of the fighting and worse, I wouldn’t be at Orton Park the next day to resolve it myself as I was scheduled to be at Jesse Ketchum. I felt bad. Thoughts detailing my failure and guilt flooded my mind to the point of tears as I came home that night. These thoughts and feelings followed me throughout the entire evening. I asked God to relieve me of these feelings so I could get on to fixing my mistake, so I could come back later that week and prevent it from happening again. The feelings continued. Finally, I reached for my Bible and then googled until I found the “...grace is sufficient for you.” verse. This led me to find the passage in 2 Corinthians 12 titled, “Paul’s Visions and His Thorn”. 

According to this passage, strength was never about me. It was never about what I could do or what criteria I was meeting. It was never even about people or what they had done.

This may sound fairly obvious, but when you rely on yourself as instinctively as I had been, you too would understand how profound a revelation this passage was for me. I was so mad and disappointed at myself that I hadn’t even thought to ask God what He was thinking of me–probably because I already decided I was a failure that day–but it was right there, as I was strewn across the mini sofa in my bedroom, that I read through this passage where God met me and told me,

“...My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9a).

I began to realize that my weakness wasn’t something I had to bear as a burden on myself, but rather I was always meant to give them over to God, not to fix my messes as I had once thought, but so that He could give me grace in place of the strong crippling emotions of guilt and shame, and strength to grow and move forward from these sort of mistakes. This reminded me of the importance of the rest of the verse which goes,

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9b).

Boasting had felt like a strong word, but now I understand. God wants me to admit my weaknesses to Him so that we can trade. My weaknesses for His strength, every time.

In my opinion, it’s the best trade I’ll ever make.