Sufficient Grace

This past Saturday, Kendel blessed me by signing me up for a silent retreat on our church's campus.  I never would have signed up for it myself, no matter how much I knew I needed it.  I even considered not going.  But then I thought about the alternative (spending the day taking care of the kids) and quickly decided it was in my best interest to go.  :)

The retreat was from 9am-1pm at the beginning of which we all took a "vow of silence" for the next four hours.  I spent this time reflecting on the last years of my life.  It has been quite a journey, one with no short supply of trials.  My reflections were also set in the context of Holy Week, both the darkness that is "good" Friday and the beauty that is Easter Sunday.  Christ's movement from death to life invites us to consider our own metaphorical "deaths" and "resurrections" that this life inevitably brings us through.  My own journey has provided me opportunity for such consideration.

I began asking God for a "word," something which I rarely do.  I was looking for something that would help give language to my journey.  I kept returning to 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and Jesus' response to Paul's thorn in the flesh:

• But Jesus 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight . . . in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I don't claim to fully understand what Paul is saying here, but I know that its paradox rings true in my experience.  I spent much of Saturday chasing the rabbit trails where my life intersects with this truth.  Was it a word from God?  I wasn't sure, but I knew it was God's Word and that was enough.

It was later that evening, however, that I was convinced I did hear God's word about my journey.  My family had just finished dinner at our on-campus dining hall when we walked back to the car.  On the sign that faced my parking spot, someone had placed two sticky notes with the words from 2 Cor 12:9. This sort of thing doesn't happen to me often (maybe if I asked for more from God it would!), and my overly rational self began thinking that it was likely a nice gesture from a friend of mine who knew I had spent the day with that verse.  But when I asked her about it, she looked at me blankly, and I knew it wasn't her.  So who was it?  My guess is that it was an overzealous college student unwittingly used by God to give a word to a man in search of one.  I wouldn't expect it any other way.