Helpless, and Transformed
Flowers blooming
Quiet reminders
“I am temporary”
Here today - gone tomorrow
Leaving behind wilted husks
That were once so beautiful.
My name is vapor
Quickly passing
Given meaning by God
Who gives
Who takes away.
God gives
Merciful blows
That feel merciless
When received.
Yet, somehow
Some way
They bring transformation.
They are mercy.
My wife struck down
By fierce blows
A medical condition
Compounded by allergies
Bedridden for weeks.
I am helpless
A husband who cannot care for his wife
I have no substance to heal her.
I am a flower of the field
Blooming today
A husk tomorrow.
A terrifying thought,
True and horrible and wonderful
Somehow.
God speaks,
“You are weak
But I am strong”
“Jesus learned obedience
Through what he suffered”
Using the foolish
To shame the wise.
Displaying strength
In the weakest.
At my weakest moments
Pleading before the Lord
For some means to help my wife
For some strength to carry her
For some humility to be her servant
For some energy to face exhaustion.
And the Lord gives.
It is his to give and his to take
And when he gives
It is still he who does the working.
Not me.
I am the helpless flower,
Wilting in the heat of the affliction
And the Lord says, not yet.
You will not fade now.
Here is strength,
Here is desire,
Here is action.
Mine to give and mine to take.
Transforming grace,
Suffering brings change
From proud strength.
Helplessness giving
What strength and self-assuredness
Never could.
Now I boast all the more in my weakness
Because Christ’s power rests on me.
I will delight all the more in my helplessness
Because then I am strong.
Where I once hated weakness
Hated suffering
Hated feeling pain of any kind,
My mind is changed
Slowly
More each passing year.
To see the beauty of God’s work
In suffering
To see the glory of God’s grace
In weakness.
Learning to value suffering
Because I see
The good it wrought in me
Because I know
The Power of Christ
And the power of my own pride.
And I cannot escape my pride
Without seeing my own helplessness
My desperate need for Christ,
That desperate need has always existed,
Suffering is the teacher that removes
The Blinders from my eyes
And seeing, I believe.
Still crying, “help my unbelief!”
Still seeing, only dimly
Still needing my savior every hour.