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Adam Russell Taylor Every year, in the final months of winter before the warmth and longer daylight of spring fully take hold, my spirit needs renewal, sometimes even revival. For others, this season can be characterized by a general sense of malaise or just feeling blah. Daylight saving time never helps. And for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this season also falls during the solemn season of Lent. This time of the year can be especially difficult for me and others who suffer from “seasonal affective disorder,” a type of depression caused by a change in the season, often resulting in feelings of fatigue and hopelessness. For many people with SAD, these feelings start in the fall and early winter; in my case, the end of winter is when I most often feel my energy sapped and some of my passion dim. Some years it is quite mild, but when this season coincides with times when I’m feeling overwhelmed, it can be more debilitating and acute. At its worst, it can feel as though I’m living in a fog that suffocates my joy. I’m grateful that I have learned to discern the warning signs so I can try to mitigate its worst effects. In these seasons of blah, I keep coming back to the apostle Paul’s profound vulnerability in his second letter to the church in Corinth. Paul boasts about a mystical experience in which he points to a thorn in his flesh and pleads for God to take it away. God’s response? “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul then explains in his letter: “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” (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10). We know that Paul performed many miracles — exorcisms, healings, even bringing a young man who had fallen out of a window back to life — but instead of boasting in these miracles, Paul boasts in his weakness. Paul doesn’t name the exact nature of his thorn; perhaps it’s a physical condition like malaria or epilepsy or some kind of spiritual affliction. All we know is God’s response: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” It’s not easy for most of us to embrace weakness. Our culture tends to exalt and idolize strength. To the dreaded job interview question — “What are some of your greatest weaknesses?” — I’ve often dodged by turning one of my strengths, such as working too hard, into a feigned weakness. But while there are useful tools like CliftonStrengths to help us leverage our strengths as leaders and managers, we don’t often talk about how our weaknesses can shape our spiritual and vocational journey.
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