The Problem Is Me

In the early hours of the morning, while I was rocking my two-month-old, I was relaying the many thoughts and feelings circling in my mind and heart to God. Many of those thoughts and feelings were more negative than positive. Why this, why that? I felt a general sense of scatteredness, like I was being spread out in all directions. I didn’t feel like I was doing enough, being enough, leading enough. These types of thoughts, which I am very familiar with, almost always lead me to blame my current circumstances. The reason I feel this way is a lack of this or that; if only this would change, if only I had that. It is almost like a little riddle I whisper to myself to cope with these feelings, “If only this, then I could ___________. As my mind began to wander down this well-worn path, I was suddenly met with a realization like a splash of cold water. First, I noticed a pattern of thought, and second, I understood its nature.

Maybe, just maybe, it is not that my circumstances need to change. Or that my situation is somehow missing some secret, magical ingredient that would suddenly make everything better. The rather painful discovery I was making that quiet morning in the rocking chair was that it is not about where I live, my job, my ministry, or the lack of this or that, but rather that the real root of the problem resides within me. To put it in plain language, the problem is me.

Before I got married, I naively thought that marriage would change me. Before I had a child, I naively thought that having to keep another human alive would change me, but here I am, almost three years married with a two-month-old, and the problem is still me, and the changes have not yet organically and naturally happened to me. I have moved countries twice; I have left certain communities and entered new ones. Changing circumstances come quite easily to me, and, in a way, the opportunity to have experienced so many different circumstances shows what a blessed and privileged position I have been given. But for some odd reason, the problems still follow me wherever I go, and whatever I do, that same, old, and familiar thought pattern casts its shadow wherever I happen to be in the world.

Now, you may be hearing this and thinking, “Don’t be so hard on yourself!” I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, and there is most certainly a lesson for myself to learn about giving grace to myself. This particular realization and awakening to this thought pattern does not bring feelings of condemnation and defeat, but rather feelings of liberation and a step in the right direction. Saint Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, talked of a thorn in his side, a recurring bother that reminded him of his own frailty and his utter reliance upon the grace of God.

But He said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

Weaknesses are inevitable in this life. One of mine is idealizing change and putting the blame for my struggles on my circumstances, albeit that blame is primarily subconscious. Wherever I go, whatever I do to change my situation, my weaknesses will follow me like my own shadow. But if we can take a lesson from the Apostle Paul, these weaknesses are not an end in themselves; they can be transformed into opportunities for something far more glorious than we could ever imagine. According to St. Paul, his own weaknesses were not things to avoid, ignore, or just accept as inevitable realities, but rather opportunities for Christ’s power, through Paul, to be made manifest. By shifting my focus and attention from my circumstances to the real problem, which is me and my weaknesses, these weaknesses become something different. I no longer become so easily subservient to them, but offer them up to the one who was “perfected through sufferings.”(Hebrews 2:10) That is, the human nature that Christ assumed in His incarnation was brought to completion, perfection, by voluntarily dying on the cross, descending into Hades, and defeating death by death.

If I am able to offer up these weaknesses and, in cooperation with the Spirit, have them transformed, the relationships I share with any current circumstance are also subsequently transformed. This change does not necessarily entail physical changes to the immediate situation, as I am so quick to long for, but rather change on a meta-physical level, a level that transcends the physical. Just as Paul was glad to boast in his weaknesses so that he could experience the power and strength of Christ that dwelt within him, so I can be transformed through my weaknesses by the strength of Christ. But that is not it. There are two levels of reality that are simultaneously being affected: the often-alluded-to in the Scriptures, “seen and unseen.” When my relationship to my weaknesses is transformed by Christ's power and strength, 1) they cease from being weaknesses that have power over me that I am enslaved to, and 2) my circumstances are changed on a meta-physical level.

It has been a week or so since journaling all of these thoughts down, and let’s just say that the current circumstances of my life have not changed for the better. I do still feel stretched, I do still feel spread out in all directions, but, as I continue to offer up my weaknesses to Christ, His power and strength are being made manifest, and those things that were viewed in a negative light before are being transformed in the light of Christ’s grace and mercy.

All thanks be to God.