Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Pressed but not crushed

The enemy will try to crush you based on your calling, but God will use your calling to crush the enemy.

It had been one of the most emotionally trying weeks I've had in a long time. Amid the crushing fatigue and muscle weakness that accompanies a neuromuscular disease like MG, one of the medications I take to fight it was also causing mood swings, and I found myself crying more easily than usual. To add to that, I accidentally overheard a sister in the Lord (who I have great respect for and who didn't know I was within earshot) speaking negatively about me to another person I love dearly. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! Then came the deluge of tears. 

One of the unexpected challenges of having a rare diagnosis is that many people simply don’t understand it unless they have experienced it or know someone who has. Therefore, to my utter dismay, I continuously need to explain to others why—to avert a respiratory crisis or other MG exacerbation—I need to avoid certain triggers like overexertion, stress and heat. Sometimes even after trying to communicate this, I am misunderstood or judged as mentally or spiritually weak. 

Though I knew my sister’s negative opinion most likely stemmed from such a misunderstanding, I felt absolutely crushed by the weight of her words. They had seemed like an attack on my ministry calling, and the more I thought about it, the more I started to doubt my ability to carry it out. I mean, if someone I considered godly and wise thought those things, maybe there was an element of truth to it and I’ve only been fooling myself. Reality said I was well-prepared and equipped for my clearly confirmed call to Christian leadership. However, I had allowed Satan to twist a few careless words into lies that said I would never measure up.

A few days later my husband, Aaron, and I were asked to consider taking a pastoral position in a church we had been ministering to. As we drove home feeling blessed by this church and their desire to have us lead them, we accidentally ran over a snake in the road. I was immediately reminded of the messianic promise (pointing to Jesus’s ultimate victory over Satan) in Genesis 3:15 that the serpent would strike man’s heel, and that man would crush the serpent’s head. I then heard these words in my spirit as though they had been spoken audibly: “The enemy will try to crush you based on your calling, but I will use your calling to crush the enemy.” Suddenly it all made sense.

The pressure I had experienced that week was not by accident. It was a calculated plan that I failed to recognize at first. Paul reflected this when he wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Cor. 4:8-10, NIV).    

There are lessons better learned through pressure. Pressure reveals where our faith contains holes. Those holes remind us of our human frailty, which reminds us that without God we can do nothing, which reminds us that it was never based on our human ability anyway, which then fills our faith “holes” with the confidence that we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength (Phil. 4:13). As a result, we can humbly hold our heads high despite what anyone else says or thinks because we know that “faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thes. 5:24).

In addition to this lesson, God opened the door for me to talk to the offending sister once my vision wasn’t so clouded by the offense. We both realized we had mutually misunderstood each other’s hearts in the matter, which resulted in a deeper friendship and understanding. God truly works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose! (Romans 8:38)