Friday night I happened to have an evening alone with my fourteen-year-old son, Alden.  Scott (my husband) and Kate (our daughter) were at a father/daughter night for the fifth grade girls.  Somehow, miraculously, Alden was not working on plans with friends by the time I got home.  So he and I set out to run some errands, rent a movie, and settle in for our own little mother/son evening.

We were almost home from Blockbuster when I ventured into what I consider to be a more grown-up conversation than we used to have.  That is, I volunteered information about my day instead of  just asking about his.  I launched in with, “Well, I’m really tired but I had a good day today.”  I went on to explain that most days I don’t get a lot of accolades for my work, but that day had been different.  A counselor has to always walk that fine line of looking for evidence that they are actually helping people, yet not depend on constant pats on the back to feel okay about themselves and their work.  There is always that knowledge that I cannot solve other people’s problems, and I had just had about a two-week run when that had been painfully clear to me.  So this day, last Friday, I had several different people tell me how much I had helped them.  I was floored.  And grateful.  And since I was hanging out with my teenager, he was the one I shared it with.

Now I have to tell you that there was a tiny bit of ulterior motive at work on my part.  I also had a little thought in the back of my mind that this could be a help to Alden.  He has had a good school year with a lot of accomplishments, but the previous evening we had attended the big 8th grade awards assembly and he didn’t get any of the big “surprise” awards that he knew he was in the running for.  I think I had some vague notion about a little life lesson for him somewhere in there — that when you get the accolades, it is really satisfying but most of the time you don’t get pats on the back for doing a good job.  I tried to explain that is why it meant a lot, because normally I don’t get a lot of that in my work and that is okay.

So I didn’t get very far before Alden said, “I’m not surprised.”

“You mean you’re not surprised that people actually find me helpful?”  Now this was a surprise, and I said so.  “I figured you and Kate wonder how I can help other people when I get so many things wrong myself.”  I mean, who knows all your flaws better than your kids?  They totally know that I struggle with my temper, especially when I haven’t had a full night’s sleep.  They see me letting my anxiety get the best of me.  They put up with me asking them multiple times every school morning whether they have their lunch and their house key, as if my asking enough times is going to insure their safety for the day.

Alden just said, “Yeah, but I don’t know how someone without problems would even be able to understand what people are going through.  It seems like you would have to have some problems yourself if you were going to be any good at helping someone else with theirs.”

Okay, I say stuff like this all the time but it really sounded different coming out of my child’s mouth.  Really?  If I was this ideal person that I wish I was, I may not have as much to offer to the people around me?  Is this what that passage in II Corinthians means?  “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

What if we all approached our weaknesses as our strengths?  What if we faced them and then asked God and our fellow humans to put them to use?  Could it be that our best gifts are contained in those parts of ourselves that we just can’t seem to conquer?  What do you think?  What are your best and worst traits?  Are the gifts inherent in the weaknesses?

“… for when I am weak, then I am strong.”