I Can’t Do This

There’s a whisper in my ear.
“I can’t do this,” it says.
I’ve heard that voice all my life.
Sometimes it speaks softly, sometimes it hisses, and sometimes it shouts.
In the first days of our daughter’s catastrophic illness while I walked the marble halls of the hospital the words resounded with each step; a silent scream to God, “I can’t do this.”
I told Him that at least a million times. Whimpering, pleading, angry.
“God, I can’t do this. You are asking more than I can bear.”
A quiet voice, within my heart and soul answered, “Who are you to tell Me what you can or cannot do, or tell Me what you can or cannot bear?”
It is a paradox of the supernatural. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” juxtaposes with “When I am weak, then am I strong.” It is difficult for me to grasp the opposite ends of these truths. Like slippery ribbon through my fingers, I can’t join them.
“I can’t.”
“I can.”
They are at opposite ends of my brain and I don’t like non-explainables.
There are things in front of me now, challenges, hard stuff, and the voice is there.
My “I can’t do this” must yield to “I can do all things through Christ.”
“It is more than I can bear,” must give way to “When you are weak, then I, Christ, am strong.”
His voice cuts through the whisper in my ear, and reminds my fearful heart. “You can’t, but I can.”
I submit, not once or twice, but over and over again. I want to be done with the waffling of my stubborn give and take, but I recognize within it a place of sweetness, which lifts my weary heart.
He is an All Powerful Father, and I am His child.
He’s got this.

2 Corinthians 12:10 (NASB)
10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.