Do you have a thorn in your flesh?
Those pains that you feel?
The frustrations that seem to stick with you?
The way you sometimes find yourself reacting out of fear, or jealousy, or worry?
The way your body doesn't seem to work in the ways you want it to?
The ways you've been told it should?
The way that your heart leans when certain things are said and done?
The embarrassing ways you sometimes show up?
The failures and mistakes, the heartache and the tragedies?
I know you've been told that these things are what Paul called, "thorns in the flesh," made to keep you humble, small, reliant, and dependant; made to keep you from thinking too much of yourself and growing too large, so large that you might become bigger than the Divine God-self. Maybe you've discussed with friends or members of clergy what your particular thorns are and how you can navigate them. Maybe you've asked God, like Paul did, to take them from you, to free you from them, to heal you and make you whole, at peace, clear of these pains and frustrations so that you can breathe and be and do whatever comes next without limitation.
Maybe you’ve taken the words God spoke to Paul as your own:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,"
And maybe you’ve found yourself praying prayers that have you thanking God for all the things that leave you fractured and frustrated and feeling less than the wonder that you are. And doesn’t it feel strange? That God would give you these thorns so that you could stay small and end up thanking God for all the ways God keeps you in check when you were made so large?
Paul was not the first one to bring up "thorns in the flesh." Way back in Genesis - the Midrash tells us - Moses was given a speech impediment. When it came time for him to return to Egypt and demand his people's freedom from Pharoah, whenever he spoke on behalf of God, his speech changed and became clear and articulate, so he and his people would know that the power he exhibited and the power behind the strange and miraculous events that unfolded, was from God and not from him.
Isn't that why Paul said he was given thorns in his side? So that people would be able to differentiate between fallen humanity and Divine God, and not confuse the two?
The popular interpretation of the events of Moses' life and of Paul's have led us to diminish the Self and promote God-reliance. We've been told that we must deny ourselves so that we can embrace God. You can't have both; it is one or the other - not your power, but God's. And if you do things on your own, apart from God, believing that you did it on your own, well, that's the height of pride and will cut you off from the power of God. Pride comes before a fall, after all.
These dualistic ideas of God and humanity, pain and grace, power and reliance do nothing but lead us in circles of stagnation and actual disempowerment. This type of theology teaches that the only way to connect with God is to divorce yourself from your body, to believe low of yourself so that you can believe high of God.
And it's wrong.
What if the idea that it all comes from God, that it is God's power not your own, is not an indictment on your humanity, but a way for you to include it all? What if the fact that Moses had a speech impediment and that Paul had ongoing frustrations simply means that our humanity is the conduit of grace, not its downfall?
Grace doesn't cover up your humanity, hiding it away so that you can finally be acceptable. Grace empowers you to rise in your fullness, with all your kinks and tics and scars and beauty, and embrace your holy human Self with love and acceptance, the same way that God embraces you.
Grace doesn't take you from here, away from yourself.
Grace brings you to now, to you, to here, in love and power.
Mindful Prompt: "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." Frederick Buechner.
From my upcoming series, "The Thorns In Your Side" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
