On the first night of training camp, I crawled into my tent feeling defeated. I sat down and wrote in my journal, wondering how I would handle the remaining 9 days. I had thought I was tough, and yet I felt so utterly weak. That first night I wrote, prayed, and went to bed early clinging tightly to a stuffed animal. Not exactly the picture of tough missionary folk.
Several days later, I was having the conversation with God again: “Papa, don’t you remember that I’m delicate? I don’t feel tough enough for all this!” Delicate things normally break easily. “Lord, won’t I be broken?” It was then that the Lord reminded me of something a friend on my squad told me earlier in the week: “Natalie, you’re like a delicate flower!” I agreed. I felt so delicate, so weak. Overwhelmed with information, conversations, questions, and situations.
As I prayed, it was like God curled me up and sat me on his lap. He brought to my mind a picture of a pansy. It’s beautiful, tender pedals can be ripped off even by the slightest tug from a child’s hand; they are delicate. But he showed me this pansy in the garden. I watched as rain crashed down on it. Torrential downpour came and pounded those little leaves, the thin stem, the silk-like petals. With each drop, the delicate flower was moved slightly, but retained its shape. The elements that beat down this little flower could not crush it. Instead, these storms were being used to nourish the little plant. With each bullet of rain, the flower received nourishment. The water pressure that tried to knock the little plant down was incorporated into the cells of the plant. The whole reason the pansy could stand up was because of the turgor pressure of each cell. In other words, the plant endured the crashing rain, and subsequently used the drops of water as nourishment. Not only was it not destroyed, but the pansy took in what could have crushed it and used it to stand tall. God was showing me something incredible.
I’d come to him feeling weak and he encouraged me in toughness by showing me that I am like a pansy. A PANSY. Literally, the word that high school jock-boys use to call each other weak! Ha!
And it is true. I am utterly weak. I am delicate. And yet, I am tough. I carry the kingdom of God inside of me! The living water–the spirit of God in me–makes up the turgor pressure of my being, and enabless me to stand under downpour: strong, beautiful, and delicate.
“We have God’s light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it obvious that this extraordinary power comes from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but we are not destroyed. We carry the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” 2nd letter to the Corinthian church, chapter 4: 7-10
