Father, today fill me with Your Spirit. Let my heart be grateful, giving thanks instead of complaining.

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Have I ever thanked You for this knot of muscles in my arm [from rotator cuff tears]? I don’t think so. I don’t understand why I have had this for 11 years, but You don’t ask me to understand. You ask me to trust You. This pain in my arm is an “all things”, something You ask me to thank You for. God, it is easy to say the words thank You for the pain in this arm or thank You that You have not healed it yet like You did the other time, but it’s another thing to mean it. I don’t understand, but I do thank You that You are above and beyond all understanding.

You are so great and glorious that my feeble mind cannot fully comprehend the expanse of Your glory, Your power, Your wisdom, Your plan. I do, however, know that You are love and everything You do is with love. I also know that You are working in my life to give me good gifts, keeping me inside the fulness of Your love and care. I also know that You do nothing without a purpose or a plan, nothing slips by You unnoticed, uncared for. That means this pain is fully in Your care, under Your love and purpose, and for my good and Your glory.

Thank You Father. I accept this pain as from You, for Your purposes, for Your glory. Like Paul, I do ask You to remove this thorn from my arm, but also like Paul, I hear You telling me “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Help me to have the attitude that Paul had in response to Your words: “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. ¹⁰ Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Julia Ewert (5/18/2020)