Difficulties or Discoveries.....

The challenge of single parenting hits me at various times. I laugh at the things that frazzle me. You would think it were big things. Nope, it's trash day. My trash can is impossible. It's Amy sized. It's a 5 foot awkward beast that has no way of maneuvering. I push it and it resists every move. I try pulling it and I trip over my feet and go flying. Every Friday I go and get a good look around the neighborhood checking to see if anyone is out and about, before I sacrifice myself to humiliation!  I attempt with various ways to get it down my driveway without falling, tripping or running over my heals. I have tried picking it up on one end and wobbling it... It makes a scraping sound that grabs the attention of the jogger running by.  They look at me like I have lost my mind. But every Friday when the trash can gets the end of the driveway you will see me doing a happy dance! Because YES, I have conquered the trash can yet again.  

Empowerment, the giving of an ability; enablement or permission.  There have been moments where I have felt empowered because I gave myself the permission to figure out something new and the ability to fail at it.

It started in a puddle of tears. I wish I was kidding but I am not, and I have a friend to back me up. I called her in a panic one afternoon, sobbing because I couldn't figure out how to hook up the DVD player!  I had let a little black metal box get the best of me. I sat it to the side and a few hours later walked over with the ability to give myself permission to fail and whaa-laah... I took one little cord and attached it to the TV and DVD player. The complexity of the problem was my inability to allow myself to try and fail and then try again until I got it to work. 

We have these moments a lot. There are things we are doing for the very first time that we are now seeing the freeing power behind a new challenge to conquer.

Instead of seeing moments of unfamiliar territory we are embracing them with a sense of  discovery. 

Like emptying the vacuum. Not sure why I never had this job or why in all my existence I hadn't dumped out the full tub, but I had been spared from this task! Zadyn and I looked and looked for how to release the junk inside into the trash can. He is a thinker and problem solver so this was a great game for him! As I held the vacuum tub, he pointed to the bottom. He showed me that the bottom was suppose to open up, but how? I pushed my thumb up against one side that looked like an imprint, and without hesitation in one loud pooof a cloud of dust and dirt covered poor Zadyn head to toe. We stood in shock and laughed and laughed at not only our accomplishment but our new discovery. 

It says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

 “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.

Life will present us with new difficulties. Some may be big like an overbearing trash can, that seem impossible to maneuver. Others may come with a messy discovery and literally blows up in our face. But the empowering moments are when we realize that with each malfunction we are rediscovering who we are in Christ. Struggle and hardships are not just difficulties, they are discoveries that empower us to surrender our weakness so we can grow in His power.