March 28

Boasting in Weakness

            Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 

2 Corinthians 11:24-30

            There is a funny little game that people play where they compare their lives to the lives of others in order to see who has the harder path and deserves the most respect or sympathy.  Paul lays out the tortures that he has faced in his life as an apostle.  The Jewish death sentence was 40 lashes with a whip.  Five times he was given just short of that.  He was beaten; he was stoned; he was lost at sea.  He lists what he has endured for the purpose of exhorting the Corinthian church into a radical discipleship that trusts in the power of an Almighty God to overcome our weakness and frailty. 

            My motives tend to be much less holy.  When I hear parents talk about how they are struggling with their child who only slept 9 hours straight last night, my first reaction…my very first impulse is to speak up and tell them to sit down and be quiet because they have no idea what sleep deprivation is like or what it is like to struggle with a child.  They have no idea how hard parenting can be.  They are lucky.  They are blessed.  They are weak.  I am strong and they should respect and honor me because of what I’ve done.  That is my first impulse and it is ugly.  I usually do not say anything, but that is the battle raging in my heart.

            I would like to say that I remain silent because of my incredible maturity and compassion.  However, I am mostly motivated by the fact that I know that my story will not win.  Someone always has a harder experience that they have made it through.  I’ve talked with people whose child received a vaccination, screamed for two days solid and then woke up with severe autism.  I’ve talked with people who have been repeatedly assaulted by their own children and their arms and legs are just a series of bruises.  I’ve talked with people who could not leave the room that their child was in because of the potential that their kid could collapse into a seizure at any moment.  It is amazing what people have done and what they have lived through in order to love their children.

            But then we come back to this game.  This game where we brag about who has had the harder life.  It is not just a game that is played in the special needs community.  It happens all over the place: youth groups and businesses and family gatherings.  But I am going to focus on how it plays out in our community.  We compare who gets the least sleep, whose kid is the pickiest eater, who’s had the worst care provider stories, who’s had the worst school experience or whose kid has the most insane therapy routine.  Part of it is because we are finally talking with people who understand the depth and the scope of what we are saying.  Sometimes when we say “IEP” to our friends what they hear is “a boring meeting” when what we are really saying is “a contentious gathering of professionals who are playing god with my child’s life and education who will not listen to what I have to say and are only concerned with checking the boxes on their forms even though I am the parent and I know my child the best but they do not listen and they do not respect my opinions but I have to work with them because they are the only way that my child can attend school and I feel trapped and defeated before I walk in the doors.”  Other parents understand what we really mean.

            But we don’t just share our experiences, we compare them.  We strive to see who has the most challenging road…who has suffered the most.  We want affirmation.  We want validation.  We want respect.  And we believe that there is a limited supply of all these things.  We believe that if we acknowledge that someone else has had a challenging life, there will be no affirmation, no respect left for us and so we fight for it, politely. 

            “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” That is the invitation that we receive in scripture.  In order to do this, we need to be standing on a firm foundation, confident in our value and secure that we are loved.  We need to also be confident in God’s value of others, His beloved children.  When we know these things, we can listen to the stories of others without comparing ourselves and belittling their experiences.  We can celebrate their victories without wondering if our parenting is worthy of anything.  We can mourn their struggles without our pride getting in the way and calling them weak in our heads.  We can actually engage with others who have the opportunity to understand us the best instead of driving them away with this funny little game that we play. 

A moment to reflect:

How do you compare yourself to others?  What is it that you are trying to find?