Published: My Heart Behind What I Wrote in "Seek: A 21 Day Devotional"
"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." - 2 Corinthians 12:9I will never forget the moment I began to grasp this verse. My husband was overseas. I was pregnant with my second and I was sick. My son was sick too and he had been crying all night. I was exhausted and my emotions and how I felt in those moments was getting the best of me. It was very early in the morning and I remember feeling so incredibly alone. I texted a friend living on the other side of the world at the time since I knew she would be up and would be an encouragement to me. And that is when she texted me 2 Corinthians 12:9.To be completely honest, that is the last thing I wanted to read. I wanted sympathy. I wanted some magic, happy phrase that would instantly trade my sad state for something well, happier. And to be completely honest, the verse didn't even make much sense to me and that's probably because my understanding of grace wasn't much of an understanding at all.I tried going back to sleep and the restless night continued. The words in that verse didn't seem to escape my mind. And so I began digging into the Bible to seek out it's meaning. I had to re-learn the word grace. For me it was Christian jargon that was thrown around so frequently that I had truly forgotten it's meaning.Paul David Tripp recently tweeted, "It is an ever-faithful, all-powerful, inexhaustible, eternal stream of God's forgiving and transforming favor. What is it? GRACE!"Insert that into 2 Corinthians 12:9: "My ever-faithful, all-powerful, inexhaustible, eternal stream of forgiving and transforming favor is sufficient for you . . ." By refreshing myself with the meaning of grace and digging deeper into the Bible to figure out what Paul meant by this verse, the more I realized how fitting these words were in my situation. 2 Corinthians 12:9 has easily become one of my favorite "go to" verses because of it's implications on my life even when I am in a weakened state. In those moments I had absolutely nothing to grasp onto except for recognizing God's grace in my life...how it is indeed sufficient and how His power is perfectly displayed in my weakness.I surrendered that night and thanked God for using my mess to teach me more about my need for Him.
And this is why I chose this particular verse when I was asked to write an excerpt in Pursuit Community's Seek Devotional book. Today in Day 5 you will read words about grace and it's effect on your life in times of trial.Would you like to read my entry for day 5? You can download your free copy of the content here or you can purchase a hard or soft copy here so that you can join along in reading through the devotional with the rest of this wonderful community. ($3 from every copy goes to support #pursuitprojects building fund for a house at Mercy Child Care in Uganda!) And even though the Pursuit Community is already in Day 5, they will be going through the book again in September so don't worry if your hard copy doesn't show up on time!I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have written alongside some incredible women in this book. A huge thank you the Pursuit Community for including me in this wonderful, wonderful book.