Weakness, the Badge of Honor

I'm in my 4th week at my new job. A job I didn't exactly see in my future. I applied in the midst of my obedient streak in November - I literally applied and then shed a few tears. Didn't give it a second thought. Until they called for an interview. I agreed and sat in the parking lot the morning of the interview fighting every urge in me to drive away without going inside. See I didn't want to go back into nursing. I loved baking. But it wasn't making a very good living for me. And I either had to give it 120% and pursue my own baking business with no turning back...or head back into nursing. And ironically enough, God gave me both options. In the same week. The very same week I was let go from the bakery (which closed two weeks later). I was let go from one job and offered two. One I wanted very much. The other...well, I didn't. One was full of exciting uncertainty. The other a road I went down for three years after college - I knew pretty well what to expect. One was full of financial questions. The other financial stability. One was not God's plan. The other was. It was a challenging few days until I figured out which one was which.

Accepting the nursing position was interestingly the choice filled with peace. I was grateful for an answer. But I didn't see why. Maybe I still don't. What did become evident in that week though, as I prayed for clarity in how to best glorify God, how to best see the Supernatural at work, was that allowing Him to return a passion and love for nursing would glorify Him more right now than starting a baking business in Charlotte. And talk about needing the Supernatural to work! There was (and is) work to do on my heart. I wasn't ready to go back into nursing. But would I ever be without just actually doing it? Maybe it's like parenthood. Can you be fully ready for it before it happens? I don't think I was ever going to get to that "ready" stage without just doing it. So I'm doing it.

But you know what? Some of the same frustrations that drove me away the first time are here again. Oh, don't think I didn't see this coming. I was well aware that these challenges would find their way into this job too. So now I'm faced with how to combat them. I am confident this job is where God wants me for now. And I'm confident He wants it to be a less frustrating experience than the first go-round (an experience that resulted in my flying the coop and the very beginning of this blog). My Charlotte coworkers were awesome. Those I'm with now are incredible too. The job itself is joyful. The routine and charting and million little things you have to do that take away from care-giving absolutely drive me up a wall. And that's the part of my job I'm not good at. All the little crap that doesn't matter. I do the job, and do it darn well I think, I just stink at the tedious little stuff that covers your butt and makes JCAHO happy. So it's a place for God to enter in....for me to submit. Just over a year ago I got a tattoo symbolizing to me God's strength perfected in my weakness. It represents this verse:

"But he said to me, '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...[f]or when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)


I have looked at that tattoo a million times this week. I am facing that weakness now and realizing how significant this weakness, this badge of honor is. It's a way for me to become less, for God to become more. It's really the only way to succeed. But I have to allow Him to work in me. I need to beg of Him to be strength for me. Because I am weak. And it is hard. But I am learning. I will learn how to wear this weakness well. 


What is your badge of honor? Are you wearing it well?