(Story from Zach Barz, mission partner in Costa Rica)
From an early age, we learn that weakness is something to hide—something to be ashamed of, something to cover up and push through. Admitting weakness is painful, yet it is an unavoidable reality of life in a broken world. I see this tension evident in the students we work with every day [at Parrita public high school in Costa Rica]. Some struggle academically and hide their insecurities with a ‘too cool for school’ attitude in their classes. Some carry the weight of broken or abusive homes and take out the frustration of powerlessness on their peers or through drugs. Still others struggle with mental health challenges or wrestle with questions of identity and purpose but keep their pain tightly locked away behind a forced ‘todo bien’ and a sad smile.
For the past couple months I’ve been faced with my own weakness in an especially tangible way as I’ve dealt with an ankle injury that has kept me sidelined from many of my normal activities. A sprained ankle in our penultimate week of summer clubs back in January resulted in some ligament damage and turned into four weeks in an orthopedic boot and eight weeks on crutches. I’ll be honest – my attitude about the whole situation hasn’t always been great. I don’t like being stared in the face so blatantly by my own physical weakness, and my frustration has had me asking questions of the Lord on what He might be trying to teach me during this whole process. The answer that God keeps bringing me back to is a passage from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Wow. In our weakness and struggles, our inadequacy and inability, our moments of frustration and exhaustion and doubt, God meets us with His all-sufficient grace. Somehow, in a way that only He can orchestrate, our very weaknesses become the places where God’s power is most evident.
“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.”
The season of Lent is an opportunity to remember our sinful weakness, to remember that apart from God’s grace we are utterly lost. It is also a season of hope, however, as the promise of Easter reminds us that our weakness is not the end of the story. Jesus, in His suffering and death, took on our weakness—our sin, our shame—and through His resurrection, He offers us new life. The script is flipped, and the story becomes one of God’s power over sin and death. And that is certainly reason to rejoice!
This is the message of hope that my team and I get to share with students at the Parrita high school. I don’t have to pretend to be strong, and I don’t have to have all the answers. Instead, I can point these teens to the God whose strength is made perfect in our weakness, whose grace is always enough.
