Strong-Maker

He screams when his clothes get even the teeniest bit wet and we've been through this a thousand times before and he can recite the solutions and he knows it's trivial and temporary and he is fully aware that we hate his response and that most kids don't react that way and that it's actually kind of irrational to freak out about it and yet he screams when his clothes get wet and I cannot.

He hits his brother on the head and it's not fair because he is way bigger and stronger and he knows he shouldn't be doing it and he could solve the problem with words and he could just walk away and he could avoid time-outs and punishments and anger and fights and disappointment and he could choose to let it go and still he doesn't hardly ever and it happens twelve times a day and I cannot.

That's the thing, is that it happens so often.  If my kid was a monster the odd time, I think I'd be okay.  But he whines a lot.  And he overreacts more than he reacts.  And he instigates fights.  And can be aggresive.  And wild.  And obnoxious.  And deliberately disobedient.  And in so many moments, he is none of the things I am teaching and guiding and striving and hoping and praying and working and speaking and modelling.  Sometimes I am desperately wondering what to do next.  Most times I am just wondering what I have done wrong.

Because I cannot.

I cannot even imagine how to turn this behaviour around.  I have tried so many things.  When I sit back and look at the situation, I am rational enough to see that I am doing things right.  And yet, I cannot see the way through.  Nothing I do matters.  Nothing I do is enough.  I am so helpless.  So hopeless.  So insignificant.  So weak.  So incompetent.  So exhausted.  So ashamed.

But He speaks.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in tantrums, in exhaustion, in meltdowns, in helplessness.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

And I must speak back, whether I believe it yet or not is irrelevant.

Jesus, you are the strong-maker.  But you don't just make me strong by using my areas of gifting, ability, and confidence.  You make strength from utter weakness.  From this exact arena in which I feel nothing but incompetence as I watch day after day of failure.  That is where you make strength flourish.

Power, energy, spirit, fortitude, resilience, power, influence, supremacy.  All those things?  In my weakness?  Because of you and only you.   It doesn't make sense by my logic, but you are in the business of turning things upside-down.  If anyone can make me strong where I am weak, it is you.

God who makes me strong.  God, you make me strong.  The 'evidence' of feelings and of results aside, I choose to believe that here in my day-to-day struggles with Niko's behaviour, you make me strong.  In my moments of helpless, hopeless weakness, you make me strong with the strength that can only come from above.

One day, maybe I will understand why the weakness was necessary.  But in the meantime I will cling to your truth and declare it back to you.

You turn my utter-weakness into strength.