Embracing Vulnerability

8/2/2023

Written By: Justina Murphy

Embracing Vulnerability: Finding God's Abundant Grace in Our Struggles

“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

When we live in a world that judges you based on the aesthetic of your nine most recently curated Instagram photos, it is no wonder many of us try so hard to hide the not-so-aesthetically pleasing parts of our lives.

We often conceal the parts of our lives that are rough or don’t quite fit the mold. The fear of judgment keeps our truths hidden. We paste on a smile and carry on each day without complaint.

As an elder millennial, I am so glad that social media did not exist the way it does today. If you looked at the first eighteen years of my life you might use words like dysfunctional and at times traumatic to describe my story. There would have been little in the way of aesthetically pleasing photos to post.

The truth is for many years I prayed endlessly for God to change my circumstances. I can still recall the gut-wrenching pain I felt wanting to feel loved and to feel like I belonged. I wanted so badly to live the “regular” suburban life of the teens in all the TV dramas.

Throughout most of my high school and young adult years I tried hard to hide and, in many ways, run from where I came from. I tried to keep it all tucked behind a curated aesthetic and instead, paint my life in a way that seemed “normal”. I was ashamed to share with anyone the truth of my story. I was ashamed to admit that my birth father left when I was just a baby or that my family was not well off financially or that I struggled with depression and disordered eating as a teenager.

The world wants to tell us that we should feel ashamed in our times of hardship and weakness. That we should conceal those parts of ourselves from the world because “ick, who wants to hear about that?”

But in 2 Corinthians we are reminded that in our hardships and weakness, the power of God is made perfect. Through our struggles we see how God is always there, moving and making a way for us. We are never alone and therefore never meant to walk through these struggles alone.

The truth of God’s great power in the midst of my struggles was made vividly clear recently when I was asked to recall a time when God answered a prayer. As a lifelong churchgoer, my mind should have been immediately filled with a million ways God has answered my prayers, but I struggled to find a clear answer at first. I believe it was because He wanted me to push past the simple prayers of “God please let me be on time to this meeting” and instead reach deep into one of the hardest times of my life and see how He had been there.

Suddenly, I recalled, so vividly, a prayer I once had where I pleaded with God to be part of a normal, loving family. I prayed to live in a nice house, to have a dad who loved his kids unconditionally, and to be part of a family that actually wanted me around. For so many years I believed those prayers had gone unanswered until that moment I was asked to recall a time when God answered a prayer.

I realized… I am living my answered prayer. God has delivered me from the hardship of my youth and placed me exactly where I longed to be. The journey wasn’t linear or even smooth, but my life couldn’t be more “average suburban family” if I tried, and I love (nearly) every minute of it.

God had been there through every moment of hardship all those years ago. I can see now how He walked alongside me, leading me to this life and to this place. And continues to do so even today.

In this last year, the Lord has laid on my heart a profound mind shift: that my vulnerability, our vulnerability, and honesty with others about our struggles is a bridge back to Him.

You see, the world wants us to create a vision that life is always beautiful (and attainable if you just try hard enough!) But what Godly purpose does that serve?

If we could do it all ourselves, why would we need a Savior?

When we open up about our struggles and share the ways God is moving in our lives despite or even through the hard times, we create space for others to begin to see God in their own struggles. Suddenly God doesn’t seem so far away and those struggles don’t seem so insurmountable when He’s by our side.

So, what if we stopped striving so hard to hide our struggles for a moment?

What if instead, we existed in a space that honored the struggles, the shortcomings, the trauma of this life and paid attention to the ways that God and His grace pulls us through?

What if instead of hiding behind esthetically pleasing photos and hiding our hard days we instead leaned out and asked for help or better yet, extended a hand to help others?

What if we started to share the effects of God's abundant grace on our lives to bring people to God as well?

What if?