“…to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!
“Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
“And he has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
“Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:7-10, NASB
As a kid, I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would heal me of my Type 1 diabetes. I knew he could do it, but he didn’t. For a long time, I was angry with him and the world. I wondered if I wasn’t good enough, didn’t believe strongly enough, or had done something to offend him. The experience shook my faith to its core, and it took several years to re-embrace it in a more than nominal way.
Why wouldn’t God heal me? He gives good gifts, and healing’s a good gift. Right?
Both statements are true, but they forget other characteristics of God and how he operates. He wars for his glory first. That means he sometimes says no to my prayer requests. He has a better and bigger plan in motion, and it entails me walking through being diabetic, perhaps for as long as I live.
I have learned and continue to learn the blessing found in that reality, my thorn. Being diabetic is hard, but it reminds me constantly that I am not in control. I need help, every minute of the day. I need God more than I need healing.
My prayers were wrong as a kid. It wasn’t on purpose; my faith was that of a child. I wanted God to do what I wanted him to do and treated him like some sort of supernatural Santa Claus. When he failed to deliver, I doubted his goodness and sovereignty. The problem wasn’t with him; it was with me and my incomplete understanding of him.
God never changes. He is a good father. He gives excellent gifts.
Thankfully, I change, or rather, God changes me. God’s best gift for me isn’t the healing but the thorn. It breaks and blesses. It shows I am never alone and proves God’s faithfulness over and over again.
He walks with me in my frustration and tears; he brings me back from lows that leave me passed out on the floor. God does so because he knows that being diabetic will produce a larger blessing in me that pours out to others. He uses the thorn to grow and shape me into a woman who is closer to the image of his son.
Because of that, I, like Paul, boast in my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may be magnified. The greatest gift God could give me is a thorny blessing. Through it, he becomes more bright and glorious. He becomes my “more than enough.”
To God be all the glory and praise. You are more than enough.
Image: Ali Burcin Titizel (Creative Commons)