Not my job.

I have been a little out of the game lately. I have been so completely out of resources to face the various challenges in a day. Drained as I am, I am headed into two months of intense study abroad—a trip I have dreamed about for ages and am now terrified to go on because, well, I'm exhausted. I have told God more than once this past semester that I am done being strong. I used up all my strength so that it is gone now, and I will not keep trying to be strong. While I tell Him that with struggles in my heart and plenty of stubbornness, I am starting to, or trying to understand something: I am not wrong to say those things to God. In this case, a poem from Anne Brontë says it much better than I could:

My God! O let me call Thee mine!

Weak wretched sinner though I be,

My trembling soul would fain be Thine,

My feeble faith still clings to Thee,

My feeble faith still clings to Thee. 

Not only for the past I grieve,

The future fills me with dismay;

Unless Thou hasten to relieve,

I know my heart will fall away,

I know my heart will fall away.

I cannot say my faith is strong,

I dare not hope my love is great;

But strength and love to Thee belong,

O, do not leave me desolate!

O, do not leave me desolate!

I know I owe my all to Thee,

O, take this heart I cannot give.

Do Thou my Strength my Saviour be;

And make me to Thy glory live!

And make me to Thy glory live! 

It isn't my job to be strong. While that isn't necessarily the most comforting thought when I am feeling weak, at least I know I do not have to try to muster up some lackluster conviction to keep holding on to Him despite my questions and fears piling up. I am allowed to have feeble faith.

What matters is that I tell Him. I tell Him I can't go on by myself. I tell Him I can't love Him enough. I tell Him I can't do anything big enough for Him. Because I am right. For the first time, I am truly in a place where I don't have what I need to push through competently. And that is the place where I am able to realize I can't do anything. That He does everything. And that is how it's supposed to be.

It was on my heart to share that poem because so often we forget that it is not our job to be strong. That is His job. And when it feels like He's refusing your pleas for His strength, start again:

My feeble faith still clings to Thee.

My feeble faith still clings to Thee.

words by Kailin Richardson and photo by Arianna Taralson