To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

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. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (II Corinthians 12:7-10).

***

A reoccurring nightmare has plagued my life ever since I was a small child. I am an outcast, last picked, and the one who doesn’t fit. I feel like I’m on the outside of a circle looking in. It’s life on the fringe–even in the church. It’s felt like a curse all my life.

Yet this has been the thorn in my flesh that has brought me to my knees and keeps me there. When I look up, Jesus reaches His hand of acceptance, grace, love and mercy towards me. He’s the strength that lifts me up and gives my life a reason for living. What would I do without knowing Him? How would I have survived my husband of seventeen years leaving three days before Christmas with another woman? Then losing my house and then my job soon after. Thank God there’s God and his grace is made perfect in my weakness.

The thorn in my flesh didn’t go away the first time I took His hand and leaned into His grace. The thorn continues to plague me. But every time it does, Jesus reaches out to help me if I’m humble enough to receive it.

Rejection, abandonment, hardships, and persecution are the thorns that have brought me to the throne of God’s grace, and they are the thorns that keep me glued to Him. I’d rather have thorns and know God than to have never seen the need for His grace which is made perfect in my weakness.