2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
It was my last Public Speaking class of the semester, and the assignment was a graded impromptu. Students were asked to list three potential topics (for an impromptu speech) on a sheet of paper. After turning in their folded lists, they had to pick a paper and chose their speech topic from one of the three listed. They had ten minutes to prepare.
One of my students was in a wheel chair. He also had limited control over his arms and hands, so I helped by writing down the thoughts that came to him. As it turned out, only one of the potential topics suited—what power would you choose if you were a super-hero? His first thought, of course, was that he would be able to walk. But as he began to construct his speech he realized the enormity of the task. He had so trained his mind to accept the fact that he would never walk, that he struggled to come up with the benefits! In the end, he told the class that he really didn’t need to have a super-hero power at all. He had God. And that was all the power he would ever need.
It was one of those gut-wrenching moments that occurs when you come face-to-face with true courage. Here was a young man who had learned to accept his limitations and work within them. In the course of the semester, I never saw a trace of self-pity. In fact, he occasionally made jokes about his chair. He knew—really knew—that it could not keep the purposes of God from being fulfilled in his life.
And so it is with each of us. We all have limitations in one form or another. Sometimes God removes them. We experience a miraculous healing, either physical or emotional. Money to pay those outstanding bills appears “out of the blue.” But when our constraints are not taken away, I pray we would have a mindset like my friend, Kyle. I pray that we, too, would know that nothing can keep God from completing his plan in us and through us.