Strength in Weakness

Unfortunately I was not able to post a blog last month when I had hoped. My mother Helen Reimer had a sudden stroke which took me out of province and on a quick flight to Manitoba to see her and to support my Dad and the rest of the family. It was good to be by her side for two weeks, to see her smiles, winks, feel the squeezes of her hand and hear her try to express her love and concerns through the only sounds that she could make. The stroke caused paralysis to her right side and she hasn’t been able to eat or drink. We don’t know how much she comprehends, the blood clot that developed before the stroke affected the functions of her frontal left brain lobe.  A week after the stroke she started to have some discomfort with arthritic pain, she also has had cornea eye surgery and her best eye was on her right side so her sight isn’t that great either, and on top of all that she has had high blood pressure issues. There have been many situations against mom in the last years. At this point it has been difficult to think about anything besides the situation at hand.

I have been home and back in the office for a week and it’s only now that I am finding strength enough to write this blog. It has been an extremely difficult time for our family. My mother is a strong woman, she has been through many a health problem but somehow she has managed to get past them with God’s strength! In regards to her life, she is 88 years and has had a life of fulfillment; she has raised a family, worked, and served God through music, singing, and praying. My Mom and Dad were also on the welcoming team at church on Sunday mornings and involved in the community. My Dad and Mom both have had amazing energy…. like a energizer bunnies!  In the last couple of years my Dad was doing a lot of the work because of my mother’s decline in health and eye sight.

Through this painful time we have also seen that God’s power is alive and that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. There have been many people praying which we are so thankful for. God is touching our lives and the lives of others, drawing them to Himself through this and for His glory. God is in control, we see that He has perfect time for everything and by His grace we are entrusting Mom into His care.

It is through the tough times of our lives that we recognize that we need God and His strength and power in our lives. He is the one who sustains us; He comforts us when we are in distress.
He understands what we are going through because He also experienced the difficulties of life here on earth. He knows what is best for us. God holds us up with the power of His strength. He is not a crutch. Ephesians 3:17-19 says: “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”.

One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 12:9
“For my grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in your weakness.” Verse 10 also goes on to say "Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Through the storms in my life I have seen God’s great power come and work things out according to His plan. He can do that for us all as we put our trust in Him.

Right now God is preparing a place for my Mom, during her last breath and in her greatest weakness He will make her strong and she’ll be in the best place that anyone could ever desire to be …Heaven!

Treasures in Jars of Clay:
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal”. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Biblical Study on Strength in Weakness click here