Strength

Most weekday mornings at 8am, I turn on my computer, brush my teeth, and assemble my plastic stair-step. With a movie playing, I’ll step up and down, kick right and left, count off my pushups, and stretch out my hamstrings in an unintimidating attempt at getting fit. Actually, it’s an attempt at preventing bone loss, a threat my doctors are already wielding with zeal. They tell me that my skeleton is eroding out from under me. “Weight bearing!” they press. I must bang this body around a bit. I must get strong, or I’ll become very, very, very weak.

Strength seems to be the theme for this period in my life. I come across it every day. One example: a recent assignment has me ghostwriting a man’s autobiography. We’ll sit down at a local coffee shop—only a few inches away from the next occupied table—and he’ll tell me stories of being raped as a child, of growing up with a learning disability, of becoming a drug and alcohol addict. This man does not dumb it down, does not dodge the phrases nor bat an eye at the things he says. Rather, he stands up to his broken experiences and says, “No more. I will not be beholden to you ever again.”

That sort of strength astounds me. But he’s not the only one who faces down beasts. Consider the person who sits beside the bed of a dying parent, never cursing God or running away. Consider the person who battles fears, anxieties, the crushing weight of expectation and still says, “I am my own person, and I will not be mastered by this.” Consider the person who has a heart beaten up time and time again by a should-be ally and remains buoyant and willing to embrace the world just the same. Consider the person whose body sears with daily pain, and yet who is a bright light to the world. Consider the person who lives life fully alive, refusing to be scared off of love or hope or faith that the world will be better tomorrow. Consider the person who asks for help, the person who lends a hand, the person who battles for a change.

These, these and so many more, are the strong. These are the heroes.

Heroism is not monopolized by the great among us, but by the once-weak. For weakness begets strength. The end of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians reveals this fact perfectly, reminding us that even the greatest have struggled with brokenness and challenges. “That I might not become too elated,” explains Paul, “a thorn of the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’”

What power, what strength do we receive in our weakness? What might must we have to not be subdued? The silent and the strong are here among us every day, revealing heroism in the beautiful and broken world we experience. We must remain faithful to them, acknowledge their presence, take courage from their strength and their example. In their presence and fortitude, we discover hope in our own moments of weakness. In their lives we find possibility for our own.

Seeking out the strength of others—and admitting to our own weakness—we are made new and whole and ready. Suffering is not our enemy. It is the crucible that yields our strength. Just as my weight-bearing exercises yield a strength that will keep me upright, so too will our weight-bearing experiences yield a strength that will keep us going even in the worst of times. We find ourselves in our suffering. And by the grace of God, that is enough.