Is it Wrong to be Strong?

The year was 1990. I was thirty minutes away from hosting a sportscast on the Madison Square Garden Network, and I had a strange feeling that something was wrong in my hometown of San Antonio.

I was working in New York City, so I called friends back home.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

My closest friends were fine.

Then I phoned my husband. “I can’t shake this feeling. Is everyone okay?”

“I was going to wait to let you know after your show, but your grandfather died tonight.”

It was like someone had just swung a baseball bat with full force, and I was the ball. Gut wrenching sadness overtook me as memories of my grandfather flooded my soul.

My grandfather, Frost Carvel, was an architect, bald before his time, who loved the game of tennis, and was very good at it. I always marveled at his room, filled with trophies. When my mother went through a bad stretch, I lived with my grandparents, and can remember being called back to his home office where he proudly showed me the latest design he was working on. Even after my mother and I moved out, my grandfather often helped us out financially, when my mom couldn’t make ends meet.

My grandfather, who died in his early nineties, was an instrumental part of my life, but lived in a nursing home for the last six months of his life. We all knew God would call him home soon, but you are never ready for a loved one to pass.

So when I heard the news of my grandfather’s death, my eyes welled up, and I wanted to mourn. But now, it was only ten minutes until show time, and there was no one else who could go on the air.

I had to be strong.

Somehow, I held back my tears, got through the sportscast, then let the emotion flow afterwards.

I was strong that night, and can’t even say it was the Lord helping me, because I was not following him at that time. It was just something that I reached down and grabbed, in order to make it through what I had to do.

Strength is good, as long as we don’t make it an idol.

When talking about the Babylonians who overran Jerusalem, Habakkuk 1:11 says, “They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen rams they capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—guilty people, whose own strength is their god.” The great and mighty Babylon empire, no longer powerful, eventually fell. Their deified strength failed them.

Do you take pride in being strong?

I’ve been called strong, but God has humbled me so many times, that I now rely on him for my strength rather than myself. What I’ve found is that we don’t have to be strong in our own power, because when we admit our weakness to God, that’s when he takes over.

The Apostle Paul was a strong guy, but God gave him a “thorn in his flesh” to humble him. Paul asked the Lord to take it away three times. But God’s response to Paul was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul went on to say that he delights in his weaknesses because when he is weak, Christ is strong, in and through him.

I believe we all have a “thorn in the flesh.” What is yours? Have you asked God to remove it, but he won’t take it away?

It’s okay to admit that your problem is bigger than you. That you can’t handle it alone. It’s fine to cry out to God and others for help.

You don’t have to be strong.

The Lord works with those who have a broken and contrite heart. He wants us to be honest about our shortcomings and weaknesses.

He desires to be our strength.

I may still appear strong, but inside I am a broken little girl who the Lord infuses with his strength. A shattered vessel, pieced together by God’s love. What people now see in me in the strength of the Lord radiating through my weakness. If I didn’t have the strength of Jesus to tap into, I’m not sure I’d be able to stand.

God can do the same for you.

Simply admit you cannot handle what faces you.

Ask him to help you persevere.

Then watch his strength go to work.