20 years ago, this cute pastor’s kid swept me off my feet. Quite literally! While on a musical drama tour with the youth group, I fell off the back of a U-Haul truck and sprained my ankle.
For the rest of the day that cutie carried me on his back.
That day became weeks, then months and now years.
Over the last 20 years we have taken turns carrying each other. I carried Rob through Multiple Chemical Allergies, and deep depression. He carried me through a spinal fluid leak, debilitating back pain, and loneliness.
However, there have been even more times when we tried to carry each other and failed. The depression was too dark, the loneliness too deep in the soul, or the struggle of doubt shaking us at the core.
It is scary to be unable to carry your best friend. In the midst of it all, I engraved 2 Cor 12:9 on my memory: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
I hate being weak. I hate asking for help. I hate being carried. (Rob will tell you I tried walking on that hurt foot over and over.) Often if someone is helping me it is because they kicked down the door and wouldn’t leave, not because I asked them.
In our first year and a half of living in Hungary: our car blew-up, someone broken in and stole our computers, I was in the ER with a spinal fluid leak, and we had 60+ doctors’ appointments, and a trip back to the States for medical care, all while walking through chemical challenges with Rob and Caleb.
Asking for help started in the quietness of my room with just me and God, asking him for the strength for that day or that meal or that hour. When fear of being perceived as weak tried to creep in I again and again I read 2 Cor, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
He wants us to share the scariest of stuff deep in our heart and soul with Him. He wants to carry us. He wants to carry us with audacious and extravagant love.
“We’re talk about a love that is extraordinary. Supremely supernatural. We’re talking about being swept up with the One you can’t tire out and you can’t run from. The One who still calls you Beautiful at your ugliest and pulls you up at your lowest. The One who doesn’t have to struggle to forgive you. The One who really does keep no record of wrongs. We’re talking about coming alive to an honest-to-God acceptance that we are audaciously loved and drumming up the audacity to boldly love Him back.” -Audacious by Beth Moore
I definitely haven’t yet arrived. I still struggle to ask for help. But I trust and believe in God’s extraordinary, supernatural and audacious love for me, and His grace is sufficient, and His power is made perfect in my weakness.
#Audacious by Beth Moore