We walk into a room filled with people we don’t know very well. I see this wave of anxiety rush over my oldest daughter’s face.

“Oh Mom, I don’t like walking into a room where I don’t know people.”

Baby girl, I get it.

“Baby, half of the people in this room feel just like you do.”

You can do this.

She relaxes and within minutes she is talking with a girl a few years older than her with a smile on her face.

I smile and watch her in that stretching place and know that growth is painfully awkward and wonderful at the same time.

We have all been hard wired to function a certain way, I’m not sure when it starts but eventually we start thinking that the way we were designed is wrong. We forget that our weaknesses give way to a strength we can only find in God.

We fight against our God-given abilities and try hard to function like someone else.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

Trying to be something that we are not is like wearing shoes that don’t fit, each step feels uncomfortable and eventually you aren’t walking at all. You are limping.

You were never meant to limp, you were meant to live life to the fullest. Each time we second-guess our Creator who designed us for a very special reason and role in the body of Christ, we lose some of the best parts of who we are. We minimize what God meant to showcase for His glory.

Why do we limit what God meant to illuminate?

Sometimes I wonder if all we see when we examine our lives are limitations. Maybe it’s not limitations; maybe it’s a love letter.

A love letter that says, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

A love letter that says, “In your neediness you will find Me and you will find that I am more than enough.”

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (Matt 11:28 NIV)

Everyday we are faced with things that make us uncomfortable and in that stretching place we figure out what we are made of. We learn that shy girls can overcome those first feelings of panic and end up having the time of their lives.

We learn that the over-sharing extrovert feels the need to chat constantly because the silence makes her uncomfortable. But, eventually she learns how to listen like her loved ones need her to.

We learn how to depend on God in a world that teaches us being self-sufficient is the ultimate goal.

I think we should stretch, learn, and grow knowing that our moment of weakness provides us with an opportunity to see God’s power revealed in us.

We learn that His grace is sufficient even when we feel like a hot-mess. We learn that His grace covers all of our cracked, fragile place.

Pray, stretch, grow and repeat.

Much love,

Jennifer Renee