Familiar Connections: Gaining Confidence through Weakness

Have you ever read a book and found some connection with the settings, person, or feeling? Does that connection help you better engage with the book? I always find that I pay attention more when that phenomenon happens to me. But when multiple happen in the same book, I start to wonder, “God, what you are telling me?” In the case of my current book, To Honor and Trust by Tracie Peterson and Judith Miller, the male character’s career hits close to home for me, one of the locations is in my home state, and I can relate to the female character’s desire for truth and trustworthiness in others due to a past heartache. My ears are alert, “What lesson should I learn from this book, God?”

The male lead, Wesley, is a 25 year old doctor, and my own brother (not named Wesley as that would be too coincidental) is 26 and currently in his second year in medical school. While Wesley is fictional, I feel that I understand some of his background just through my knowledge of what my own brother has experienced. For example, Wesley comes across as very knowledgeable in areas not only related to medicine. I might not think much of that as he is fictional, but over the last 17 months my own brother comes home on breaks more knowledgeable than the last time I saw him. I talked to him about this over Christmas Break and he told me that medical school is hard (duh, I already knew that) but that he had had to develop a sense of confidence and self-awareness about what he knows and how he knows it. I had always seen my brother as a confident person, even before medical school; but since going, he has become even more so. I didn’t realize that under that layer of self-confidence actually laid a layer of uncertainty. He had to develop this “thicker skin” so to speak in order to study and perform his duties.

 Amazing, I had never thought about confidence in such a way. That a person might first have to become aware of their failings and weakness before they could become strong. The Bible confirms this in Paul’s writing in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10,  “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 Christʼs power may rest on me. That is why, for Christʼs sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’” (https://www.bible.com/111/2co.12.10.niv) Growing up, I just assumed this was in reference to physical strength or in areas of faith; but now that I am older, and facing other challenges in life, I can see that in ANY situation, before we can become confident we need must first be weak. It is through this weakness, this trial, that we learn to become better, stronger, CONFIDENT.