EWF seeking GOD: My grace is sufficient for you...

When I sat down to write this blog I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go with it.  The last few days have been a jumble of thoughts and emotions.  The one word that kept springing to my head as I looked back on the events of this last week was grace.  I will spare the details for privacy's sake but suffice it to say that a tragic loss occurred in my fiance's family this week.  It rocked my new family to the core.  When my fiance got the phone call late Tuesday evening, my heart broke and went into a tail spin.  "What am I supposed to do?" "What is my role?" "How can I help?" "How can I comfort?" "How do I make the pain go away?" "How do I wipe the sadness from his eyes?" I felt helpless. I felt at a loss.  I felt weak.  These people that I loved so much were hurting and I could do nothing to stop it.  I instantly began praying, "God what can I do? Show me what to do!" I should have realized I was thinking and praying completely wrong.  The reoccurring word that kept popping up in every avenue was "I" and "me".  What in the world can I possibly do? I can't reverse time. I have never been through anything like this. I don't have insight or wisdom. I can't heal hurts nor can I change hearts. What was I thinking? I was thinking I had to DO something. I was thinking it was up to me.


So, here I sat trying to wrap my head around this crazy week and put into words what has been spinning around in my heart and these verses came to mind.  "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 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." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, ESV) I am weak. I am helpless. I am at a loss.  But His grace is sufficient.  His grace steps in where I fail.  His grace moves in and takes over where I can do nothing.  His grace is what changes everything! Not me. Not my strength or my ability or my right words or my well timed hug.  None of that has any power without being bathed in His grace.  As a well loved minister from my past used to say, "Grace has a way of overflowing and splashing out over all those whom you come into contact with."  Instead of praying for the right thing to do or for the right words to say I should have been praying that the healing grace, which is mine through Jesus Christ, would overflow and shower my hurting family and that they would be able to taste the sweetness of Christ in spite of the bitterness of sin, especially to those hurting who might not yet know Him.  


Thankfully, God is not reliant on my cooperation.  Thankfully, God accomplishes His will whether I sanction it or not.  Praise God that He works continually with and through my weakness.  Praise God that His power is perfection. My prayer is that I will be able to say with Paul I am content in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  Because God is my strength and my portion.  Sinclair Ferguson said in a sermon I recently listened to, He supplies me my daily bread. And His mercy and grace are fresh and enough for each day.  I pray that His mercy and grace will be poured out on my new family and that Christ would be made evident to them through this and above that through all of this His name would be praised.  


I am weak but I AM is strong.


Hallelujah!
Rachel