By Kat Silverglate, Founder Copyright 2021

I don’t remember learning the word “fragile.” Don’t remember learning to spell it or pronounce it or write it. Don’t remember seeing it in that dark blue Word Power vocabulary book that accompanied some of us through high school. Don’t remember pondering what nuance makes it different than delicate, frail, weak, tender, feeble, crumbly or even sensitive.

What I do remember about discovering the various facets of “fragile” is this sense of paradox that seemed to show up when it appeared in ordinary moments of daily life. Bubbles, snowflakes, spider webs -- the slightest encounter can wipe them out. If they could handle the weight of a warning sticker, surely it would read “handle with care.”

That is until you look just barely beyond first impressions. Think about the force of wind that pushes the bubble around. The flake that piles on others to support the mountain on which climbers climb and skiers ski. What about the strand of arachnoid silk in the web that rivals steel in comparative tensile strength? Steel! It’s a thing. Check it out. All are dust-like in substance with a remarkable capacity to exhibit power.

As with other paradoxes, we tend to become acquainted with them through a series of head fakes. At first glance, fragile appears synonymous with weak until caboose-like, the end of the word demands attention – AGILE. The strength in the left hook sucker punches us because the weaker right holds our attention just long enough to make us to lean in. You get pretty good at spotting fragile by its weakness, until strength suckers you into finding AGILE-fray [that’s pig Latin for fragile]. Strength leading until weakness shows up to complete the match.

Really good graffiti works that way for most of us. Rounding a gritty street corner in Lisbon, I spot a gigantic portrait of Marilyn Monroe and my first reaction is to stand dumb-struck at the ability and agility of an artist to cover the side of a construction wall with museum-grade art. “How is that even possible?” I wonder. And then a deadly honest question or two roll around in my head. “Why on God’s green earth would an artist offer something so stunningly beautiful when an opponent with a $5 cannister of spray-paint can deface it, the elements will certainly punish it, and dogs will find great relief in yellowing it?” “Who allows something that beautiful to remain in a path of possible humiliation?”

God does.

In recounting a moment of brutally honest dialogue with God, the Apostle Paul shares a jewel from his wrestling match with the Lord on the paradox of fragility. He tells us first that he had some sort of limitation, a thorn in his side. The text doesn’t clarify whether it was a physical ailment, emotional problem, character flaw, besetting sin, or something else. What we do know is that he tried but couldn’t shed it. “To keep me from becoming conceited,” Paul tells us, the affliction was allowed. Then he builds this framework for the fragile paradox:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 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 Cor. 12:8-10

A real head fake, isn’t it? Particularly in a culture that elevates self-made men and woman and calls fool the one who yields to God. Seeing lack as a museum of sorts in which the Lord displays His power to us and to the world -- that’s what Paul challenges us to ponder.

So that’s our mission this month.  Facing fragile head on and challenging our responses.

There are three stickers in your mission pack.

The small sticker relates to You.  It says, “I am fragile.” Our first challenge is to simply notice fragile        when it shows up in our daily life. Are there opportunities to seek or to see God’s power there?

The medium sticker relates to Others. It says “Handle with Care.” When you notice fragility in others, do you compare your strength to their weakness? Do you judge them harshly because you don’t struggle in the same way? Perhaps a simple prayer -- “Lord, show me how to handle this person with the same care You’ve extended to me in my own fragility.”  Maybe even share the paradox.

The giant sticker relates to Outcomes. It says, “Do Not Drop.”  When we pour ourselves into helping others, and our best efforts seem to come up short, we often beat ourselves up as failures or get frustrated or even mad. His grace is sufficient, not just for them, but for you. Part of handling others with care (praying, serving, pointing them to the Lord) is telling yourself the truth about your role and God’s. Don’t drop the truth when someone you’ve helped is still strugglin. His power. His grace.  His sufficiency. His. He sees what we can’t. The heart.