More About That Thorn

It feels like a miracle. 

For the past several mornings, coffee hasn't helped. By mid-morning I've crashed and gone back to bed. Knowing something was wrong, I went to the doctor again this morning. And after two antibiotics today, I feel much better.

I tried to write last night but couldn't get beyond the lingering nausea and exhaustion. The labs aren't done, but I think last week's UTI still has a hold. However, I can assure you I'm not pregnant. And yes, running that test resulted in a ten minute wait that felt much longer.

Thus, I'm tardy again with my blog. But hope to be back on track with Monday night posting next week. 

After a long week of survival, I've decided to pull from what spoke to me a few weeks ago as I finished a study on 2 Corinthians.

First, do you recognize this quote?

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12: 9).

Of course you do. Most of us do.

The encouraging words come from the chapter about Paul's thorn, the one in his flesh that mystifies scholars to this day.

Was it an eye ailment? A spiritual tormentor? No one knows since Paul only shared:

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'" (2 Corinthians 12: 7 - 9).

When I read those words before my recent Bible study, I felt ready to take on the world in my slowed state. 

But then I read on:

"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 Cor. 12: 10).

Paul's talk of weakness took on a whole new meaning when I absorbed more fully that it involved delighting in insults, persecution, hardship, etc..

I don't want to delight in insults. I don't like them. 

I do, however, delight in my children. In the love between a husband and wife. In sunsets at the beach. In peanut butter and chocolate. And antibiotics that heal UTI infections.

But delighting in hardship, persecution, insults, and difficulties? I have a lot to learn.

As if delighting in hardship weren't enough, I remembered these verses from the previous chapter where Paul shared,

"Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move" (2 Cor. 11: 24 - 25). 

The list goes on. But did you catch it? 

We talk an awful lot about the thorn in Paul's side, but rarely about the state of his back after being stoned, beaten with rods three times, and receiving the forty-lashes-minus-one five times. 

Forget PTSD. How did he survive the brutal beatings over and over? Think arthritis. Sciatica. Internal organ bruising.

Yet we wonder if the thorn in his flesh was an eye condition.

I can't wrap my brain around it. There's just no way to fully relate.

But I can try to delight in things a little differently than I have before. 

It won't be easy. I know me. 

But it might be worth it.

"For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12: 10).