Turning weakness into strength
What is your weakness? What is your relationship with your weakness? Have you ever thought of your weakness as a gift?
The Lord teaches me important lessons through pretty ordinary daily life experiences. A few years ago He taught me a really incredible lesson about weakness and strength when it was our family’s turn to clean the Church building on a Saturday morning. Context for this life lesson… it occured only a few months after we moved across the country from NYC to the East Bay. Our move had been challenging right from the start and we continued to hit a lot of turbulence that summer. It felt confusing. Hadn’t we just shown God tremendous faith and trust in following the prompting to move our young family even though we didn’t really want to? I had naively expected that taking this leap of faith would bring a flood of blessings, but what followed almost as soon as we got off the plane was a flood of trials. Our rental house that we had committed to sight unseen was full of the owners belongings, including flipflops in the shower, food in the fridge… it seemed like they were gone to the movies, not gone all summer and it was so unsettling and uncomfortable to try to live there.
My heart felt heavy and I felt a pit in my stomach but tried to be positive and look on the bright side. Only two weeks after arriving, I found out that I had lost our baby at 18 weeks pregnant, and felt my whole world turn upside down as I had to navigate the hospital, child care, recovery, etc. all in a brand new place, knowing next to no one, feeling so lonely for my community back in NYC.
Right after I got back from the hospital, the kids and I got an outbreak of lice… I had never dealt with that before not even as a kid and it was so unbelievably overwhelming. The day after we discovered the lice, we discovered that the mysterious bites we kept finding all over ourselves were from a flea outbreak in the home. Instead of resting and recovering I was doing a million loads of laundry a day, and was trying to figure out where to just be with our kids… no where felt like a soft place to land or like home and I felt so overwhelmed by it all. I kid you not, we spent our 10 year anniversary watching a meh movie while he picked lice out of my hair. I wish I could say that the trials ended there, but they didn’t… the challenges just kept going.
I felt like the Lord had come into the very nice flower garden of my life and started jamming a massive shovel into my soil, overturning it, again and again and again… leaving me feeling raw, exposed, hurt, confused, mad, and sad.
It took some time, but eventually I began to see with different eyes. Each shovel full exposed rocks and boulders under the surface that I didn’t know were in there. Every trial had a very specific healing purpose. I couldn’t heal from what I couldn’t see. For example, I never thought I’d say this, but the Lord helped me see that the lice and the fleas were actually a loving gift from Him… After our miscarriage, I kept smiling, kept going, kept telling myself and everyone else I was okay… but the Lord could see the anger inside of me that I was blind to, anger that I was too afraid to see. Mike’s reaction to the lice and the fleas was different than my reaction. He wasn’t thrilled about them, but my reaction was rage. I felt so angry. It’s like the Lord knew that I needed something to allow that deep anger and hurt to come to the surface right away so it wound’t get stuck inside of me, and when I connected the dots, I WEPT. I had some very honest conversations with the Lord. And I testify from my own experience… God loves the Truth. He could handle my anger, and He could heal it.
Back to cleaning the church that special Saturday morning and the life lesson the Lord had prepared for me… I was struggling the night before… I felt like I was having a spiritual identity crisis and had some very profound and urgent questions about my weakness and God’s strength. I needed to know what was me and what was Him. The next day our little family arrived at the church and got assigned to clean the gym. Lucie had just turned 5 that summer, and she and I picked up one of those massive brooms, the kind that are super wide and pretty heavy, and we started sweeping together. She was holding on at the front, and I was holding on at the back of the handle. We were going along for a little while when all of a sudden she turned around and said, “This is going great because of ME!” Suddenly the Spirit spoke to me… PAY ATTENTION TO THIS. Suddenly there was a burst of KNOWING. I could see the lesson. I could see that Lucie was like me, and I was like the Savior in getting the work accomplished. If I let go of the broom, it would have come clattering to the ground and Lucie never could have done it alone. However… SHE WAS THERE! Her little hands were gripping the broom handle tight, and she was trying! She could have been off somewhere else in the gym, not helping at all, but she was THERE. And as we worked together, she was getting stronger. She was getting practice. This was a metaphor for what Grace looked like. I could see what was my part and what was the Savior’s part. I could SEE.
The Bible dictionary defines Grace as “a divine means of help or strength”, or “strength and assistance to do good works that otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means”, and “an enabling power” necessary to lift men above their weaknesses and shortcomings to that they might “lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their best efforts.” Our part is to hold on to the broom! To acknowledge the Savior as the source of the strength and direction and power, and to learn with Him, to practice with Him as he guides our work on the earth.
2 Nephi 25:23 read, “For we know that it is by Grace that we are saved, after all that we can do.”
Elder Brad Wilcox clarifies, “Grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel but the light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here and right now.”
The Lord’s process of perfecting us and helping us become more like Him is remarkable. Let’s dig into Ether 12:27 to learn more…
It reads, “And if men will come unto me, I will show them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”
Let’s break this down, piece by piece… If men come unto me, I will show them their weakness. I know for myself that you can take this truth to the bank. It is a given. The closer we draw to the Lord, the more He will show us our blind spots! Why does He do this? It doesn’t feel very good to see one’s weakness… in fact, it really really hurts sometimes. So why? “I GIVE unto men weakness that they may be humble”. What? My weakness is a GIFT, personally and tenderly given by my Savior? I thought my weakness was a sin, something to be repented of… No. No, our weakness is one of our greatest gifts, given straight from our Lord. This gift is given with an important purpose… humility. Let’s get really clear on what humility is, and what humility isn’t… True humility is HONESTY… it is liberating, it is free from judgement. It is childlike. Counterfeit humility is discouraging, self-deprecating, feels like beating up on oneself. Satan is a liar and he is always trying to deceive us. Believe me my friends, I know the difference here. Humility feels ennobling. It feels loving. It feels honest. If you feel shame, or judgement or a cringe or a shrinking feeling inside when you bump into your weakness, that is a really beautiful opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with the Lord and ask Him to teach you the truth. The truth will set you free! The truth heals. Ether 12:27 continues, “and My grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” My friends, I testify that Christ’s Grace IS sufficient. It is so incredibly important to read this last sentence carefully and to really understand it… who makes weak things become strong unto us? HE DOES. That is His job. My part is to SEE my weakness. His job is to turn my weakness into strength. And He is REALLY amazing at His job.
This truth is reinforced in Ether 12:37 “And because thou hast SEEN thy weakness, thou shalt be MADE strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.”
In his Conference talk entitled “Then will I make weak things become strong”, Elder Kevin S. Hamilton says speaking of Ether 12:27, “Looking more closely at what the Lord is teaching us here, we see that He first says that He gives men and women weakness (singular), which is part of our mortal experience as fallen or carnal beings. We have become natural men and women because of the Fall of Adam. But through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can overcome our weakness or our fallen natures.
He then says that His grace is sufficient and that if we will humble ourselves and have faith in Him, then He will make weak things (plural) become strong unto us. In other words, as we first change our fallen natures, our weakness, then we will be able to change our behaviors our weaknesses.” close quote. In other words, all the ripple effects of the natural man can be made strong through Christ.
In my personal experience, this transformation usually doesn't happen magic wand style… rather it’s more of a gradual process, happening line upon line, grace for grace. Very much like working together with the broom, He lets me be a part of the work, and that practice strengthens and transforms me. One example of this from my life was that when I was younger, I struggled with full honesty… not usually in the form of blatant lies, but more in the form of people-pleasing, not being honest with myself, feeling like I had to hide or cover up parts of myself to appear more acceptable, feeling like the whole truth wasn’t good enough. Even in little ways, I would be deceptive to appear better than I was… saying I was on my way when running l was late even though I wasn’t, pretending I knew what someone was referring to when I didn’t, saying I would love to hang out when I didn’t actually plan to follow through. While these things seem small, they were actually really limiting to my spirit. It affected my feelings of confidence and credibility in myself. I’m so grateful that the Lord loves me enough to polish me! It has been such a gradual process, and one I’m very much still in the middle of, but He has slowly been teaching me a higher, holier way. He is teaching me how to LOVE the truth, and to accept those moments where I see a blind spot with gratitude instead of shame, and how freeing it is to speak honestly, even in tiny ways. Saying what I really mean, and meaning what I say.
Speaking up about what I really want and what’s important to me. I’m still learning here, but I know from personal experience that His grace IS sufficient. He’s helped me come so far in this area of my life! My words matter and are so powerful. The pattern in Ether 12:27 is so personal and relevant… as I have come unto Jesus, He showed me where I wasn’t being fully honest. It was hard and uncomfortable to see. But once I did, I had more freedom to choose there. The more I see, the more agency I have to exercise in those areas of my life, and the more free I become. Through it all, the Savior’s Grace is sufficient, before during and after all that I can do. I am a beautiful, messy, wonderful work in progress and I know that I and all of us are our Savior’s and our Heavenly Father’s work and glory and that they delight in us all along the way!
The last thing I want to cover is how connected spiritual gifts are to weakness, grace, and strength. President George Q Cannon spoke of man’s shortcomings and the divine solution. He recognized the link between spiritual gifts and godhood. He spoke as follows, “No man ought to say, Oh I cannot help this; it is my nature. He is not justified in in, for the reason that God has promised to give strength to correct these things, and to give gifts that will eradicate them… He wants His Saints to be perfected in the truth. For this purpose He gives these gifts, and bestows them upon those who seek after them, in order that they may be a perfect people upon the face of the earth, notwithstanding their many weaknesses, because God has promised to give the gifts that are necessary for their perfection. If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will make us perfect. Have I imperfections? I am full of them. What is my duty? To pray to God to give me the gifts that will correct these imperfections. If I am an angry man, it is my duty to pray for charity which suffereth long and is kind. Am I an envious man? It is my duty to seek for charity, which envieth not. So with all the gifts of the Gospel. They are intended for this purpose.”
Moroni 10:30, 32, 33 says, “I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift (meaning the gifts of the Spirit and the other blessings of the Atonement)... Yea come unto Christ and be perfected in Him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you, that by His Grace ye may be perfect in Christ. And again, if ye by the Grace of God Are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.
This is a story that touches me deeply… It’s called the Parable of the Cracked Pot.
“A water bearer had two large pots, hung on each end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full load of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the water bearer’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. This went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After a long time of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, the cracked pot spoke to the water bearer one day, by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you”.
The bearer asked, “Why? What are you ashamed of?” The pot replied, “For a long time I have been able to deliver only half of my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you don’t get full value for your efforts”.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion, he said, “As we return to the house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.”
As they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it somewhat. But at the end of the trail, it still felt sad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For many years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my house.
Without you being just the way you are, we would not have had this beauty to grace our house.”
- Author Unknown
Fear though not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will strengthen thee, yea I will help thee, yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. -Isaiah 41:10
I have a deep knowing that as we consecrate our whole selves unto the Lord, place every part of ourselves on the altar, including our weakness, the Lord can work with us exactly as we are, to accomplish His purposes. Our weakness is a sacred and essential part of our progress and learning, and brings about humility and healing and grace. Our weakness brings us to HIM! Our Savior specializes in weak and broken things, and His Grace is sufficient for every weak and shaky place in our lives, including weak relationships. All weak things may be made strong through Him. May we come unto Him, may we have the courage and humility to do our part- to SEE ourselves honestly, and may we allow the Savior to do His part… to Strengthen and Transform us. It is our destiny to become just like Him. This is the process. He is the Way.