Psalm 77:10
And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

Okay, so we have an infirmity.  Like Paul’s thorn, it’s there digging in.  It’s not going away.  But though we have that infirmity, that’s not all we have.  We have God’s blessing upon us, His presence, His hand.  He is near to us, and He is a mighty God.  So though that infirmity may weaken us, we have His strength.  Though it may discourage us, we have His peace and joy.  Though it may bring us low, He will raise us up.  And no matter what it may do to us, we have His comfort and His love.

And so may these infirmities we have in life not cause us to forget God, but may they instead, prominent as they may be, be reminders of God and His goodness.  Because don’t they show us that we need Him?  Don’t they remind us of those times He’s helped us before?  Don’t they allow Him to work in our lives and reveal His power and glory in ways He couldn’t have without them?  Our Bibles are full of people who had infirmities, but God worked mightily in and through them, and He can do the same in our lives.

So let’s look beyond those things within us or our lives that we don’t like and concentrate on those good things that we do have.  Let’s remember who God is and allow that to change how we see our infirmity.  Let’s remember what God can do and let that change how we feel about our struggles.  Let us remember who is in control and allow that to help us to surrender those things to Him.  And when He pushes on those things and they hurt us afresh, perhaps it’s because we’ve drifted a bit and need to refocus on Him.

We don’t live in a perfect world, and life is never going to be perfect here.  And troubles of all kinds come our way, and sometimes they get embedded into our lives.  They become a part of us.  So we can either allow them to consume us or we can give them to God.  We can give them power over us, or we can trust God’s power in them.  We can allow ourselves to be overcome by our infirmities, or we can allow ourselves to be overcome instead by God and His refreshing grace, mercy and love that is more keenly evident in the midst of those infirmities.