I’m tired of trying to be strong, but we live in a world that idolizes strength. Join me at the gym some morning if you don’t believe me. Craaazy. (That’s not me by the way, lol.)
It’s cool to be a tough girl.
Pick up any women’s magazine or go to the movies. We don’t just have super heroes anymore – now we have female superheroes!
Flip on the radio and listen to these messages:
- “This is my fight song” (take back my life song)
- “I am Titanium (I’m bulletproof)
- “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
You do know, Kelly Clarkson didn’t come up with that line, right? Friedrich Nietzsche did: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Read up on Freddy and see how that worked out for him. Hint: not good.
So I decided to do a little research about it (suffering that is): does it really make you stronger? What I discovered was interesting, check it out:
Studies confirm: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Studies also confirm: what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger.
So much for the research. Listen, if what didn’t kill you really made you stronger, I would be Wonder Woman. Or Zena, the Warrior Princess. And also, strong and tough are two different things.
Just because you survive, doesn't necessarily mean you thrive. Click To Tweet
War Wounds
We tend to view strength in adversity as a badge of honor — a war wound, so to speak, to fight through and come out of a really awful time stronger, more powerful and ready to take on the next battle. It’s what the world admires and unfortunately, the church falls into this line of thinking as well. Don’t believe me? Have a conversation with a friend who has an “invisible” illness; ask them how they’ve been made to feel when they can’t do all the things that are expected of them. They hear helpful things like, “Have more faith!” “Just trust God!” Or “What are you doing under the circumstances?”
Yea, that will make you feel better.
Somehow we manage to survive the anguishing experience and then we have the audacity to pat ourselves on the back when in reality it’s only by the grace of God that we’re still breathing at all. Or is that just me?
Full Confession: I’ve idolized strength. I used to feel proud of myself for surviving. God didn’t let me get away with that for long.
I’ll spare you our conversation but He totally nailed me to my blinged up cross.
It’s just that I’d been through so much failure, and so much loss that I desperately needed to make something positive out of it. I wanted to come out smelling good, not smelling like ashes.
Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that it’s not my job.
GOD will redeem all my yesterdays, not me.
It’s human nature to believe that our difficulties carry extra meaning, that they are not in vain. Although suffering is undesirable, it’s supposed to help us grow. We want our pain to somehow be edifying, to make sense.
Listen, friends, the hard truth is that the worst of times really is…. the worst of times. There is pain and suffering in this world that doesn’t make sense. Happy feeling gone.
But I keep thinking about our favorite ideal woman, Mrs. Proverbs 31. Remember her? Up before dawn, up past midnight sewing, entrepreneur, etc. She sure seemed like a strong woman. Wonder how she got so strong?
Verse 17 tells us: She girded herself with strength. Girding refers to putting on a strengthening belt around her middle. It meant to get ready for heroic or difficult action.
This was a woman who was prepared for whatever might come, including pain and suffering. No lalalalala prosperity mindset for her. She expected things to be hard. You know why?
Because Life. Is. Hard.
Hard is normal. She understood that suffering is part of life.
We get to choose: We can put on airs or we can put on strength.
I remember as a young mom reading “What is a Family?” by Edith Shaeffer; she talked about how as mothers, when our children get sick, we say things like, “I can’t WAIT until life gets back to normal.” Her perspective was the opposite. It’s normal for there to be sickness, she said. Weakness. And it’s normal for you to feel weak when you’re the one taking care of people who are sick and weak.
Our culture reveres strength and abhors weakness. We point to others and say, “She’s soooo strong,” wondering why we’re so weak. The world is looking for role models of strong women, but the world gets it wrong; strength isn’t in the numbers of likes on Facebook. It’s not running yourself ragged. Strength isn’t in acting tough, or acting like a man. Strength doesn’t have to be loud. Preaching to the choir here.
What if real strength is knowing it’s ok to be weak? What if real strength is being vulnerable and asking for help? Click To Tweet
Sidenote:
I looked up the etymology of the word strength and it means: tight, narrow, rope, or cord.
Oh, and also, the literal meaning of the word ‘hope’ is rope. Maybe strength just means holding on to hope.
There are so many examples of strong women in the Bible but my favorite is Mary, who when told her life was headed in an entirely different direction than she anticipated, responded, “Let it be unto me.”
I wonder if strength could be simply defined as the act of responding to the Lord, “Let it be unto me.”
Strength sounds a lot like surrender. Click To Tweet
I love this quote from Stacy and John Eldredge’s book, Captivating:
“Women warriors are strong, yes and they are also tender. There is mercy in them. There is vulnerability. In fact, offering vulnerability can only be done by an incredibly strong woman, a woman rooted in Christ Jesus who knows WHOSE she is and therefore knows WHO she is. Offering our hearts wisely, living in the freedom of God’s love, inviting others to rest, alluring those in our lives to the heart of God, and responding to the heart of God in worship are some of the most powerful ways that a woman wars for her world. But she also puts on the full armor of God daily and takes her immovable stand against the powers of darkness.”
Another quote, this one from my writer friend, Katie Jo Ramsey, who suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis. It’s a rare day when she’s not in debilitating pain. She’s written a book about suffering that will be published next year, titled, This, Too Shall Last.
Here’s what KJ has to say about strength:
Strength is saying, “Lord, I am hopeless.”
Strength is letting someone see you cry.
Strength is calling a friend, blubbering, asking for prayer when hope runs dry.
Strength is making the next small, sacred choice to show up in our lives as a place God is present, especially when we fear he isn’t.
Strength, she says, looks an awful lot like childlike weakness.
That’s one of the paradoxes of the Christian life; being weak and strong at the same time. “When I am weak, then am I strong,” Paul said.
If you want to live a supernatural life, you need supernatural strength. Click To Tweet
God’s strength.
You can’t buy it.
You can’t earn it.
You can’t learn it.
It’s an exchange: Your weakness for his strength.
It’s an exchange we need to make daily. Hourly. We exchange the natural for the supernatural.
Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life union with the Lord Jesus.
Stand victorious with the force of his explosive power flowing in and through you. Eph 6:10 MSG.
Don’t you love that phrase, “Supernaturally infused?” Reminds me of the monthly infusion treatment my friend KJ receives; it gives her strength for the battle.
We get our strength for the battle through being in life-union with Christ. By staying connected to the vine. Really, our focus shouldn’t even be on whether or not we’re strong. Our focus should be on Him.
Aren’t you tired of trying to be strong?
We’re ALL weak. But we don’t have to “tough it out.” We just need to LIFT each other’s weak and weary arms and cry out for His Spirit and His Strength.
Let’s make the exchange.
