STXWM Blog

We received a text message:

“Can you guys meet for a quick Zoom call?” 

We had our suspicions about what they needed to tell us, and they were confirmed a few minutes later over video chat. Our team leaders had accepted a new position and would be transitioning out of their current role, which meant we would be expected to step up and take on new leadership responsibilities. It was going to be a new experience, a new transition, a new team dynamic.

A few months later, as we were clumsily navigating our new role, I had the thought,

“I didn’t ask for this.”

I was wrestling with all the new things that had been thrust upon us, and feeling very overwhelmed and vulnerable. We hadn’t asked for this new role, and to be honest, I didn’t want it. I had my list of really good reasons why we weren’t the people for this job, why we were unqualified, why it was unfair and unrealistic. 

Sometimes the new seasons we step into aren’t ones we hoped for.

So what do we do when we find ourselves in a new season, wondering how we got there and whether or not the Lord made a mistake or missed a detail because we just can’t seem to make sense of it all? How do we respond to coming change when the change that’s coming isn’t what we wanted or hoped for?

—–

This year, my oldest daughter will graduate from high school. As cross-cultural workers, not only will we be sending her off to college, but we will be leaving her on another continent while we return to the field. We will watch her say goodbye to her home here in Southeast Asia, knowing it’s very unlikely she will ever live here again. We’ll fly to America a party of five, and return to Asia a party of four. The grief of it all feels like too much.

I know this new season is necessary and right, but if I’m being totally honest, I don’t want to go through it. And just like the Zoom call with our teammates that brought on unexpected change in our jobs and roles, I am wrestling with the tension that comes from wanting to believe that God is good when the new season we’re forced into doesn’t feel good.

—–

After a year of resisting our new leadership position, trying to convince the Lord He got it wrong, I found myself in a worship service singing, “You are worthy of it all.” As those words slipped easily off my lips, the Spirit asked me, 

“Am I also worthy of your weakness?”

I realized that my resistance to the new season I found myself in wasn’t so much about the job title or role or responsibility, it was about the weakness I felt in it. The vulnerability of doing what we feel unqualified for, incapable of, or unprepared for often causes us to resist the new thing rather than embracing our weakness and seeing it as an opportunity for God’s strength to be made perfect in us. 

“Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” -2 Cor. 12:9a

We talk about giving our best to the Lord, which He is absolutely worthy of, but He doesn’t just ask for our best. He asks for ALL of us— our worst, our brokenness, our flaws, our insecurities, our weaknesses. When I neglect to surrender my struggles and only offer my strengths, I carry a weight of shame that keeps me from walking in His freedom in the new seasons and opportunities He brings me.

New seasons that are unwanted or unexpected are going to highlight our weaknesses, and perhaps that’s exactly why the Lord allows them. The discomfort of living out of our weakness calls us to humility and surrender, and there we find a divine strength that we cannot embody lest we embrace our weakness— not a strength we must or conjure up in the face of difficulty, but the very power of Christ at work in us.

“That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” -2 Cor. 12:10

It’s been three years since that Zoom call, and while the road has not been easy, I can see how the Lord used that unexpected new season to do a formational work in my heart and life. Once I stopped fighting it, surrendered my weakness, and embraced the new thing God wanted to do, He has delighted me with His presence and strength in beautiful ways.

The thought of the new season to come for our family this year still puts a lump in my throat, but I am clinging to the hope that when I feel utterly weak and the path ahead feels impossible to traverse, I have a faithful friend who is familiar with the Way of Weakness, and who will be with me and impart to me His strength every step of the way.

He isn’t leading us into these challenging new seasons because we are strong enough for them, but because HE is.

Embracing our weakness in the seasons we didn’t ask for or want takes an audacious faith that chooses to believe God’s grace truly is all we need. Perhaps you find yourself looking at some undesired changes ahead in 2025. Maybe you’re already in the midst of a new season you are struggling to accept. When we choose to surrender our worries and weaknesses to Christ, we are making space for the unfailing strength of our Savior to uphold us and empower us to walk forward with faith into the unknowns ahead. Faithfully carry those weaknesses, doubts, concerns, griefs, and worries to the Lord in prayer and let His mighty presence renew you and remind you that even when things don’t feel good, He is still good.

Author, Heather F.