I don't know how often, you see the the headlines in the newspapers, or hear the reports on the ten or eleven o'clock news about someone being teased or bullied. Though the end is not just being teased or bullied, nowadays unfortunately the headlines are that the person that were being teased or bullied, killed themselves. Out of all those that are being bullied or teased, I don't know what percentage end their lives, but I do know what it's like to be teased and made fun of. Growing up, I was called names such as monster, freak, I would have people make fun of my speech impairment, people would think that I was burned in a fire. Their were other comments that people would say, which hurt, and upset me at times. Although I had friends and family members that would support, encourage and help me through those comments, their were times when I felt like giving up, and ending my life. Though I always knew in the back of my mind even if it was a small mustard seed of faith that God had a plan and a purpose for my life. (Jeremiah 29:11),
We don't fully understand everything that happens in our lives, God allows things to happen for a reason, even with Paul in 2 Corinthians. God allowed Paul to receive a thorn in his flesh, which in verse seven says it was a messenger from Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself. In verse 8 Paul says 8, Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me, in verse 9 Jesus responds back, And He has said to me "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness," Most gladly, therefore, Paul responds back, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. In verse 10 He responds once more, 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. In that last verse, Paul is trying to tell us, that no matter what we face, what we deal with, the difficulties that we go through. From being teased, to being made fun of, to being mocked, to being told we can't do anything. To the weaknesses that our bodies sometimes have because we may not be as strong as everyone else, the insults that get thrown at us, because we look "differently" than most other people, but when we are weak GOD WILL MAKE US STRONG. It may not always feel like God will make us strong, or it may not always feel like it is easy, though God never said that this life would be easy. Even as a Christian, this life was not easy for me, even in the church, people did not receive me with open arms. My parent's taught me that regardless of what happened God Loved me, and cared for me, and created me this way for a purpose. Paul may have said that He was well content with what he went through in his weaknesses, I may not have always been content, though I am glad that I didn't listen to what other people told me, what the thoughts of the enemy put into my mind. Because I know that God has great plans for my life, and I am learning with God's help to be content in whatever I face, and go through. He has great plans for your life as well.
