I am tired of being strong. Correction, I am tired of trying to be strong. It is exhausting, mostly unrewarding, and downright vain. I just want to sit in my weakness for a little bit. Is that too much to ask?
But, just to clarify, to be weak in today’s world has a multitude of meanings. For example, here is a non-exhaustive list of weaknesses: mentally weak, physically weak, emotionally weak, spiritually weak, relationally weak, professionally weak, et cetera.
I often wonder how much money people spend to eradicate weakness; to become strong. You know, turn their weakness into a strength, like some people tend to do on a job interview. “My weakness is perfection; I cannot help but make sure everything is perfect.”
Sounds like a robot to me.
Having spent much of my life in sports and around Christianity, I have found these two areas often struggle with this topic. While playing sports I heard, “pain is only weakness leaving the body,” and I have seen teams spend money on making their players “mentally tough.” Yes, that is a thing. It was a fad for a few years to have former or current military personnel put your favorite sports team through a series of tests, hoping to improve their mental toughness.
In Christianity, we see it with our leaders. Those whom we think highly of, are often seen as invincible or godlike. If any crack were to be revealed on their pristine façade, the temple would come tumbling down. Religious leaders must be stoic, yet somehow compassionate. Perfect, yet human.
You cannot be weak. You must do everything on your own. You must always be successful. The strong do not mind a 60-hour work week. True power is evident in those who can withstand the hardest tests. While everyone is floundering around in pity, strife, and this difficult life, you must be the one who perseveres.
Perseverance is rewarded. We celebrate strength. The professional world is a strongman competition and those who cannot keep up simply do not survive. In politics, we seem to value those who make the boldest claims of power and remain stone-faced during moments of utter depravity. Jobs, possessions, and appearance are all status symbols. Culture determines which symbols are more powerful.
Nevertheless, society does not care if you are falling behind. We are allowing Darwin to be right, even if we do have a choice.
In our fear of coddling humanity, we have made it unacceptable to ever cry, to fail, to fall behind, to be different, to think different.
Men, for example, who do not shoot guns are weak. Men who do not know cars, work with their hands, play sports, lift weights, laud their sexual exploits, make ____ amount of money, and look/act a certain way, are all weak.
Women on the other hand are expected to be weak, or weaker. “It is just nature. Men are stronger than women.” Therefore, women must make less money, dress a certain way, look a certain way, act a certain way, and be submissive. Weakness for a woman is a virtue, but it means they definitely cannot do some of the things a man can do.
Vomit.
In all honesty, I wrestled with using the word “vomit” and the word “bullshit” to separate the preceding paragraphs from what follows. Both, however, are fitting.
So:
Bullshit.
Being strong has nothing to do with what we have made it to be and everything to do with who we are.
In fact, the strongest thing we can do, is to be who we truly are.
Imagine this. A person with supposedly unlimited power, who can control raging storms and bring the dead back to life. This person could surely have anything and everything they ever wanted. Money, power, partners, and possessions, the world is at their fingertips. Yet when faced with a great predicament, they choose what we consider to be weak.
Approaching Lazarus, all Jesus had to do is to speak his resurrection into existence, and the dead man would come back to life. However, noticing Mary distraught, Jesus wept. (John 11).
The strongest thing we can do sometimes, is to be vulnerable enough feel empathy and to love.
Expectations for who we are have the power to keep us from being who we can be and who we are made to be.
We are meant to laugh, to cry, and to let down our guards.
We are supposed to feel pain and to fail.
We are made to be weak.
But that is why we are strong.
We are strong not because we are a man or woman, big or small, rich or poor, black or white, but because we have one another.
We are strong because I am uniquely me and you are uniquely you.
We are strong because we do not have to be all the time.
Thank God.