2 Corinthians 12: 7-10
7 Therefore, to keep me from becoming overly proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from the Adversary to pound away at me, so that I wouldn’t grow conceited. 8 Three times I begged the Lord to take this thing away from me; 9 but he told me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.” Therefore, I am very happy to boast about my weaknesses, in order that the Messiah’s power will rest upon me. 10 Yes, I am well pleased with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties endured on behalf of the Messiah; for it is when I am weak that I am strong.
I'm really not sure how to begin this post. I mean, who really wants to write about weaknesses? Who really wants to read about strengths? But, alas, I must. I have a strength--organization. I have a weakness--organization. I can become addicted to it. It can rule me. I have another strength--perfection. I have another weakness--perfection. When you put these two things together they can be wonderful or deadly. My organization strength helps me to keep my children on task with their film projects. It helps to get extras together and where they need to be. It gets a lot of stuff done. My organization weakness causes stress when I want things done NOW and not later. My organization weakness causes me to demand instead of gently ask. It causes me to have to apologize a lot. Several months ago, this weakness caused me to put pressure upon Christopher to settle on a premiere date. I had good reasons, but used them incorrectly. I choose the date. As it grew nearer, Christopher struggled to get everything ready to meet it. Because of that a few mistakes made it onto the DVD master that was taken to the "printers" (Don't know if that is the correct word, but you know what I mean) Anyway, when the DVDs were all ready and we had paid a pretty penny for them, we found 2 pretty large mistakes. One of these was a glich in the scene where Christopher scans the outside of the church with the crane. The other was in the Beyond Under trailer. Here is where my perfection weakness reared its ugly head. I got quite upset. I took my glasses off and tossed them down on the table or my lap. That is usually a pretty good sign I am distressed.
Christopher has a strength. Many of them actually. I think as you watch the DVD of BOO! you will see his strengths all over the scenes. Christopher has a weakness. It is spelled S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G. He knows it. And, he is usually very careful to get me to check things for him before sending them out. But, sometimes they get by us. My weakness required him to have to rush. A mishap with the computer caused him to lose his entire DVD menu (not his fault by the way. It took him 6 weeks to make that menu). So, in about 3 hours time, he created an new one and linked all his videos onto it. I had caused the 3 hour rush because of my "organization" and deadline for the premiere. In his rush, he downloaded the wrong Beyond Under trailer. His weakness is now plastered for everyone to see. Whose fault is it? Ultimately, mine. But, I blamed him. I threw the glasses down. I got upset. However, it all comes back to my sin. I rushed ahead. I knew when I did it that I shouldn't push. The LORD was speaking to me and I ignored him. Now, my son has to pay for it.
Chris has a strength. Many of them. He works hard. He provides for his family. He never stops. Chris has a weakness. He works hard. He never stops. Many of you know that he resigned his job last October. It has been a wonderful year. We have seen the LORD work miracles in our family. But, I will not lie. It has been tough at times. I feel like the LORD has grown our family as a whole more in the last 11 months than we have ever experienced. We have been blessed and humbled. But, it has been hard on Chris. He has 6 people to feed, clothe, educate, house, and love on "odd jobs salary". Because of this, his strength has been a blessing. But, because of this his weakness has reared itself many times as well.
One of the odd jobs he took was a lawn job. At first glance, he thought it was going to be pretty easy. A couple of hours work. He set his price. Well, it has yet to be an easy job. Several times the boys have gone with him. They hate that yard. I went once. I hate that yard. His mower is just too small and too old to handle it. But, his strength pushed him on. There have been days that he has not had a "job" to go to. But most days he has done two or three things in one day. None pay great, but we have not gone hungry or missed a bill. Last week, he worked an "on call" job in Cleveland. Afterwards, he went to do a follow-up on an odd job and then got on his motorcycle to meet me for his haircut appointment. He wrecked his motorcycle in the about 2 mile stretch of road between me and him. I can not tell you how blessed he was. He is healing SO wonderfully. And his injuries were so minor. However, he was suppose to do that yard the next day. He couldn't even hardly walk. But insisted he was going. Thankfully, a friend (love you Mike) did the yard for him. I believe part of his wreck was to get him to slow down. Do we need the money? Oh yeah. But, he needed to let the LORD continue to get the glory in this and not him. (By the way, Chris has really done an awesome job with this issue over the last year, but as with any strength/weakness, we sometimes have to be humbled and reminded.)
See, the LORD uses our strengths for His glory. We shouldn't fight Him on that. We should always seek to glorify Him with the strengths He has blessed us with. But, the LORD will also use our weaknesses. And, He will also use them to teach us. Ouch! Unless I sin again, and I hope I don't, I will not plan a premiere without Christopher's input. I will not plan one that will push him as I did this time. As he says "Let's never plan another premiere before we have the DVDs in hand." I will try to learn from my sin and let him be him and not require him to be perfect.
And the other three Stewarts and their strengths/weaknesses...well, let's just save that for another post :)
Trusting in Him,
Penny
PS I am leaving this post as a draft. I have already caused my son to be embarrassed with his weakness forever in DVD form. I will not do that again. He can choose whether to post this or not. It is my gift to him.
Note To Mommy:
Thank You Mommy, I love you so much and Im sorry that you thought you had to do this for me. It is all part of
God's plan and I trust that he will use it to bring him glory and not me. (no misspellings!!!! I think) Thank you
again Mommy.
Love C.D.S
7 Therefore, to keep me from becoming overly proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from the Adversary to pound away at me, so that I wouldn’t grow conceited. 8 Three times I begged the Lord to take this thing away from me; 9 but he told me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.” Therefore, I am very happy to boast about my weaknesses, in order that the Messiah’s power will rest upon me. 10 Yes, I am well pleased with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties endured on behalf of the Messiah; for it is when I am weak that I am strong.
I'm really not sure how to begin this post. I mean, who really wants to write about weaknesses? Who really wants to read about strengths? But, alas, I must. I have a strength--organization. I have a weakness--organization. I can become addicted to it. It can rule me. I have another strength--perfection. I have another weakness--perfection. When you put these two things together they can be wonderful or deadly. My organization strength helps me to keep my children on task with their film projects. It helps to get extras together and where they need to be. It gets a lot of stuff done. My organization weakness causes stress when I want things done NOW and not later. My organization weakness causes me to demand instead of gently ask. It causes me to have to apologize a lot. Several months ago, this weakness caused me to put pressure upon Christopher to settle on a premiere date. I had good reasons, but used them incorrectly. I choose the date. As it grew nearer, Christopher struggled to get everything ready to meet it. Because of that a few mistakes made it onto the DVD master that was taken to the "printers" (Don't know if that is the correct word, but you know what I mean) Anyway, when the DVDs were all ready and we had paid a pretty penny for them, we found 2 pretty large mistakes. One of these was a glich in the scene where Christopher scans the outside of the church with the crane. The other was in the Beyond Under trailer. Here is where my perfection weakness reared its ugly head. I got quite upset. I took my glasses off and tossed them down on the table or my lap. That is usually a pretty good sign I am distressed.
Christopher has a strength. Many of them actually. I think as you watch the DVD of BOO! you will see his strengths all over the scenes. Christopher has a weakness. It is spelled S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G. He knows it. And, he is usually very careful to get me to check things for him before sending them out. But, sometimes they get by us. My weakness required him to have to rush. A mishap with the computer caused him to lose his entire DVD menu (not his fault by the way. It took him 6 weeks to make that menu). So, in about 3 hours time, he created an new one and linked all his videos onto it. I had caused the 3 hour rush because of my "organization" and deadline for the premiere. In his rush, he downloaded the wrong Beyond Under trailer. His weakness is now plastered for everyone to see. Whose fault is it? Ultimately, mine. But, I blamed him. I threw the glasses down. I got upset. However, it all comes back to my sin. I rushed ahead. I knew when I did it that I shouldn't push. The LORD was speaking to me and I ignored him. Now, my son has to pay for it.
Chris has a strength. Many of them. He works hard. He provides for his family. He never stops. Chris has a weakness. He works hard. He never stops. Many of you know that he resigned his job last October. It has been a wonderful year. We have seen the LORD work miracles in our family. But, I will not lie. It has been tough at times. I feel like the LORD has grown our family as a whole more in the last 11 months than we have ever experienced. We have been blessed and humbled. But, it has been hard on Chris. He has 6 people to feed, clothe, educate, house, and love on "odd jobs salary". Because of this, his strength has been a blessing. But, because of this his weakness has reared itself many times as well.
One of the odd jobs he took was a lawn job. At first glance, he thought it was going to be pretty easy. A couple of hours work. He set his price. Well, it has yet to be an easy job. Several times the boys have gone with him. They hate that yard. I went once. I hate that yard. His mower is just too small and too old to handle it. But, his strength pushed him on. There have been days that he has not had a "job" to go to. But most days he has done two or three things in one day. None pay great, but we have not gone hungry or missed a bill. Last week, he worked an "on call" job in Cleveland. Afterwards, he went to do a follow-up on an odd job and then got on his motorcycle to meet me for his haircut appointment. He wrecked his motorcycle in the about 2 mile stretch of road between me and him. I can not tell you how blessed he was. He is healing SO wonderfully. And his injuries were so minor. However, he was suppose to do that yard the next day. He couldn't even hardly walk. But insisted he was going. Thankfully, a friend (love you Mike) did the yard for him. I believe part of his wreck was to get him to slow down. Do we need the money? Oh yeah. But, he needed to let the LORD continue to get the glory in this and not him. (By the way, Chris has really done an awesome job with this issue over the last year, but as with any strength/weakness, we sometimes have to be humbled and reminded.)
See, the LORD uses our strengths for His glory. We shouldn't fight Him on that. We should always seek to glorify Him with the strengths He has blessed us with. But, the LORD will also use our weaknesses. And, He will also use them to teach us. Ouch! Unless I sin again, and I hope I don't, I will not plan a premiere without Christopher's input. I will not plan one that will push him as I did this time. As he says "Let's never plan another premiere before we have the DVDs in hand." I will try to learn from my sin and let him be him and not require him to be perfect.
And the other three Stewarts and their strengths/weaknesses...well, let's just save that for another post :)
Trusting in Him,
Penny
PS I am leaving this post as a draft. I have already caused my son to be embarrassed with his weakness forever in DVD form. I will not do that again. He can choose whether to post this or not. It is my gift to him.
Note To Mommy:
Thank You Mommy, I love you so much and Im sorry that you thought you had to do this for me. It is all part of
God's plan and I trust that he will use it to bring him glory and not me. (no misspellings!!!! I think) Thank you
again Mommy.
Love C.D.S