As I came across this image on Pinterest my heart sank for all the woman who believe this as truth. I don’t blame them though, as this is what we are made to think. This has become our very definition of “strong” and it is destroying us as women from the inside out.
Four years ago I would have agreed with this quote. For the first six months of college I cried myself to sleep almost every single night. But no one knew. For each day I would wake up and put on my mask of “happiness” as I walked out the door. How many other of my classmates and friends did the same thing?
We are made to think that our emotions don’t have value as they are labeled as a sign of weakness. So instead we create thick masks to hide our pain. We put on our smiles. We take our perfect Instagram selfies. And we act as if nothing is wrong.
All along, our true reality of whatever we are fighting stays in the dark where it grows and grows. Even though we are surrounded by people, we end up completely isolating ourselves. But this does not have to be our reality.
Hiding is not the answer. It is time to wake up. It is time we as woman walk in honest vulnerability. Let us stop trying to make the world think our lives are perfect, when in reality life is messy AND THAT IS OKAY!
My life is no exception. I struggle with feeling alone and misunderstood. I do not want to be single, and I fear doing life on my own. I find my identity rooted in all I do, not in who God made me to be. I am a perfectionist and easily judge the faults in others. Not to mention I have issues trusting others, oh and I am extremely impatient.
But you know what? None of that matters. Not one single thing. Because I serve a God who is so much bigger then all of my junk. I share it because I know what it feels like to be completely alone. I share it because I know the more I bring these things to the light, the less they control my life. And through it all I have seen God use my weaknesses for so much good. Won’t you let Him do the same? There is so much freedom to be found when we stop pretending to be strong and let God work!
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. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
