Birds of a Feather Definately Stick Together

I have 4 kids, an amazing husband, some catepillars and a few baby birds living in my house right now.

Yes you read right. Catepillars and baby birds.

Now the catepillars are generally quiet little insects. The only thing we've heard from them is a little bit of munching. (They are for a science project which I will blog about later because it's really cool.) And no, the catepillars aren't the bird food.

That leaves me with my husband, my kiddos, and a bird family...Cue the Electric Company song "which one of these does not belong"....

2 Corinthians 12 is a very cool passage of God's Word. Paul tells about a man who saw visions and revelations from the Lord. Although Paul never tells us that the man was himself, he alludes to it (vs.6-7). The result is that God gave him a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment him. Paul pleads with the Lord to remove the thorn. But God says "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Have you ever had a thorn in your flesh? It may not be an actual messenger of Satan, or it may.  Never ending sickness, car trouble, medical bills, marital problems, kids in a tough growing phases, financial difficulties, joblessness, or a person who has gossiped about you. I could list example after example of things that God allows into our lives to keep us broken before Him, running to Him, pleading with Him for some relief. And so could you. Sometimes, He answers our prayers, relieves us from the trouble. But many times like Paul, He says "My grace will be all you need because my power is made complete and perfected in your weakness."

Back to my story.

Baby birds are cute, soft, and provoke ooohhhhhs and ahhhhs when found in a nearby nest. But they are loud LOUD loud when they live in your chimney. And when they eat 24 hours a day, screeching each time the momma descends into the chimney, and you add that to the incessant noise 3 children make, a baby in a whiny phase of his life, a very loud dishwasher, and all the other sounds that exist in my home, my brain lives in a never ending overload mode. It seems that those baby birds are the 'straw that broke the camels back' for me. On a side note, I should tell you that I struggle greatly to understand people's words when there are multiple loud noises. Infact, if you are talking to me while my kids are playing loudly, I will ask you to repeat yourself because I can't understand anything you are saying. Anything.

Which is embarrasingly annoying.

So I am praying that God will give the bird momma worms with steriods so those 'thorn in the flesh' babies will grow exponentially in size and move out more quickly than they would normally do. But until then, I'm am trying with all my heart to rely on God's grace to get me through each moment of my noisy day. It seems that this small thorn (yes I know it's silly and small) is what God is using to keep me broken at the foot of the cross. And the glory of it is that through my relying on Him to be sufficient for me, somehow, supernaturally, His power is being made perfect through my weakness!

And I praise God for that! Because I have many, many weaknesses!

Which is why Paul goes onto say "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ 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."

So here's my tool to pass to you today. Do you have a thorn in your flesh? Something that you've cried out for God to remove because it's painful and inescapable, and yet He hasn't removed it?
Praise God if you do!
                        Because as difficult as that thorn may be, it's keeping you close to your Father,
                        relying on Him continually to be what you need. And whether you see it or not,
                        His power is being made perfect through your weakness!