"I Could Never...

...do what you do," she says. It is not the first time I have heard this.  In fact, almost everywhere we go, a well-meaning woman will share with me her doubts that she could ever be a missionary. 


The truth is, sometimes I feel like telling her, "I can't do it either!"  It breaks my heart to be away from my family and friends.  It actually physically hurts when I say goodbye...again.  It is exhausting to pack up and
move so regularly. 


You see, I am the kind of girl who would love to live in the same house in some quiet town for the rest of my life, preferably just down the street from my parents.  I do not need adventure.  I crave routine and stability.  I long for a place where I am known and loved for me, where old ladies squeeze my cheek and tell me how much I look like my mother did at my age. 


If I focus on those things, I become so weak that I am frozen in a pond of pity just waiting for the enemy to come fish me out and eat me for dinner.  However, if I focus on Truth, I never give up-because I do not have to do it. He will do it in me. 


Usually when I hear that familiar phrase, "I could never. . . " I just respond, "Yes, at times it can be challenging, but God's grace is always enough for us."  I really mean that.  He really has always met us in
our moments of grief with a breath of comfort, in our hour of exhaustion with an infusion of strength.  When we are weak, He is shown strong.  Everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own, that our only power and success come from Him. 


I think that next time, though, I am going to change my byline.  I will smile and say, "You are right. You couldn't do it, and neither can I.  That is the whole point.  He wants to do it through me and through you, so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect His glory.

Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. . . And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit. . . But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. . . That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. II Corinthians 3:5, 18; 4:7; 12:10