Feeling weak

I don't know whether I have 500 words to write today.  I'm feeling weak.

I made some bread.  White bread, made with bread flour which has extra gluten to give the bread a good texture.  I used white sugar for the yeast to grow on.  There is basically nothing nutritionally redeeming about this bread.  Not one thing.  It's two loaves of pure, unadulterated simple carbohydrates.

During the kneading of the bread, I did something to myself.  I was a month past my surgery yesterday, and I've been feeling a lot better.  The doctor said it was a 4-6 week recovery period.  So I thought, "Goodness.  Maybe I can finally start doing a few things now."  I kneaded bread dough, and I felt a little snap in my midsection, and then I had to go lie down on the sofa for awhile.  My life is so boring.  I am so weak.

My body is weak, as is my resolve.  I ate a piece of the bread, and I don’t know why.  It will probably make me ache tonight.

My emotions are weak, too.  My body, my mind, my spirit.  Everything is weak.  During the night last night, the wind was tearing away at the world outside my house, rattling the siding and shaking the shingles.  I felt afraid, but my mind was too weak and distracted even to pray well.

I am tired, depressed, ashamed.  I wish I could be the woman I long to be: cheerful, competent, wise, able to love people and to comfort, to encourage people and make them happy.  I want to be the kind of person people are eager and excited to see, the mature, giving, sensitive, thoughtful woman of grace.

Instead, I am just struggling, messed-up old me.  I’ve been a Christian for 44 years now, and I am still so shaky and unsure of myself.

There are two verses I cling to, two verses that give me hope in the midst of the reality of the mess that I am.  And there is one verse that gives me hope that I will one day be better.

This verse gives me hope that even the way I am is part of God’s plan, and that somehow He will show His glory through my weakness…

But he [God] 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.

2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

This verse gives me hope that even when I am weak, God can handle the details and work good things out of my life, that He can fashion beauty from the ashes that are me…

And we know

that in all things

God works

for the good

of those who love Him,

who have been called

according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

And finally, this verse gives me hope that someday I will see the effects of God’s hands working on me…

Being confident of this, 

that He who began a good work in you

will carry it on to completion

until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6 (NIV)