Strength Through Weakness

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[0:00] So we're in our book now, and there's still two left out there, so take one home. And I like this book. The author is really smart, praise God. And she's evidently a professor of Shakespeare studies, very cool. And this is just, you know, it's kind of the book I needed to read. I don't know about you, so I think this is great. I think this is a really great choice for us. And I just want to mark that we are sort of branching out from racial justice to justice. Not that we're dropping the racial, it's just we're doing all sorts of things now. So we're kind of maybe renamed the group from the racial justice team to the love mercy, do justice team. And so the first branch out is into disability justice. And if you have suggestions for other forms of justice, then let us know, and we can keep doing other things around that. But I will say there's something coming up that's very interesting. Just to get an announcement out there, and I don't know all the details yet, but in March, and I'll get more details to you, it's looking like we may take a walking tour of Chinatown in San Francisco, have lunch together, and learn kind of about the history of Chinatown, which would be a racial justice topic. But I'm looking forward to going.

[1:12] The question is, is there enough room for everybody to go? And so we'll find out more very soon. In fact, this Thursday I'll know a lot more, and I'll get back to you on that. But all that to say is that we're sort of branching out into other roads. And I think this was a great first choice. Now, our reading today for the sermon is 2 Corinthians 12, 1 through 10. And this passage is referred to by our author in chapter 1. And it's Paul talking about his own disability. So she mentions that several people in the Bible have disabilities, and Paul is one of them. And how does Paul understand his own disability with God's help? So let's go to our reading. It's 2 Corinthians 12, 1 through 10. The Apostle Paul writes this. This boasting. He had already done a lot of boasting at the end of chapter 11. This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. I was caught up to the third heaven 14 years ago, whether I was in my body or out of my body. I don't know. God only knows. Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know that I was caught up to paradise. And heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words.

[2:32] Things no human is allowed to tell. That experience is worth boasting about, but I'm not going to do it. Really. I will boast only about my weaknesses. If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so because I would be telling the truth. But I won't do it because I don't want. I don't want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message. Even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh. A messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

[3:15] Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, my grace is all you need. My power. Works best in weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me. That's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses and in the insults, hardships, persecutions and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Let's pray.

[3:47] Father, thank you again for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus name. Amen. Righteous Son. Righteous Son. Righteous Son. Righteous Son. Righteous Son. Righteous Son. perhaps later in life, he didn't write with his own hand, but he dictated them to a scribe.

[4:29] And the word for those scribes, or the title for them, was the amanuensis. Quiz afterwards, amanuensis. And you know what's really cool? As I was typing this word, the word amanuensis, it passed the spell check in Microsoft Word. So it's a real word if you trust those people. If you don't trust them, I don't know what to tell you. But that's a real word, the amanuensis. And the Lutheran Seminary in Oslo, I was an exchange student there for a year, but it was a curious place because all the associate professors, their title wasn't associate professor, their title was amanuensis, which is interesting. So the entry-level professors at the seminary were called amanuensis. And I think that was a reminder to them at that stage in their career, they needed to be scribing more than writing. I mean, they needed to be kind of... Right. they needed some humility. And maybe that was right. Maybe they figured out that all the youngest, newest seminary professors needed to kind of check it a little bit and just be more listening and less talking, you know. So I have more seminary stories. I'm not going to share them today, but there's some funny ones. Okay. So in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, Paul is making the case that he can't be too boastful about all the great things that he's done or all the great

[5:48] things that he's seen and heard and have been revealed to him. And so what looks like him being humble could look like someone being boastful. And he's kind of funny. It's a little bit of, I don't know what it is. He's like, I could boast about these things that actually happened to me, but it would be wrong to boast about those things that actually happened to me. And so I'm not going to boast about those things that actually happened to me that didn't happen to you.

[6:10] But he makes the point, you know, he says he's had these great revelations. He was given a vision where he was taken to heaven and these amazing things. That were revealed to him that were so amazing. He can't even express them in words, which I like because you really get the sense that when we get to heaven, things will be made clear to us that are unexpressible in the language that we have now. And that actually make, would make sense of all sorts of things like suffering and God's will and how God moves in the world. And so we'll understand it then, which, you know, you think about the apostle Paul says, and when he, when he actually very, at the end of the chapter, that's at every wedding where, you know, he says, love is patient and kind, but at the end, he says, you know, now we see in the glass or a mirror dimly or darkly, but then we shall see faded face. Now we know only in part, but then we shall know in full, even as we are fully known in full in the future. So there's this great sense that in the heavens, all this will, we will see better, hear better, understand better. And right now, as we're seeing kind of just a, there's a veil between us and what the actuality of things is. And Paul is saying that veil,

[7:18] was pulled open for him for a moment in a vision. And that's how I would trust all of what he's writing, because it probably is a lot of the revelation that he has in his, in his writing stems from things like that. But he says, I'm not going to boast for that because that doesn't really make me better than anybody else. And it's true when he's, it's not that he was so great, it's that he witnessed something that, so that was an honor for sure, but he wasn't the source of it. But what does Paul say? He says, I would rather boast about my weakness.

[7:48] And, and, and don't let this like, just roll off my tongue and you go, oh yeah, of course he should boast. That is so like counter-cultural. Like we have to stop right there. And for anyone to say, I'm going to boast in my weakness. If you're going to watch the Superbowl today, nobody on that field is going to boast about their weakness. They didn't get there by weakness. You have to be quite an athlete to compete at that level. You have to be very strong. They're in the weight room all the time. Now, some mistakes are going to be made, no doubt. There's going to be some sadness. One team's got to win. That's how it is. This is our version of bread and circuses. You know, it's, it's good talk about it, but, you know, but for someone to say, I'd rather boast about my weakness, that's very counter-cultural. That's very, that's just, but I would say this is the most beautiful and liberating part of scripture. Because if we have to be strong all the time, then Christianity isn't really for any of us. It's not for the strong, it's for the weak.

[8:45] So if you imagine that the value in our church was based on not being strong, it was based on not being strong. And so, you know, if you imagine that the value in our church was based on not being strong, then there'd be no place for people who lack knowledge or some experience or a vision, then there'd be no place for people who lack knowledge or they lack experience or they haven't received visions, right? And so this is the inverted kingdom. I want, I mean, I keep talking about this and I'm going to keep talking about it. There's this inverted kingdom that Jesus preaches, but Paul also preaches. It's on display. The poor are favored over the rich. It's in there. Okay. It's in there. The sinners are favored over the righteous. I came to save the sick. You know, the well don't need a doctor, right? The last are favored over the first, right? The first will be last. The last will be first. And here we have the weak over the strong, right? Weakness is better than strength. And this is not an American story. This is not, you know, this is not, this doesn't make sense to us, right? But this is the inverted kingdom of God, right? And so why, you know, why is this the case? Why does Paul get to this place? You know what? Paul had his own, he shares now. This is rare sharing about his

[9:47] own, you know, his own, you know, his own, you know, his own, in sort of a vulnerable way, except for the part where he, you know, he confesses that he helped persecute the church. He says he himself has been given a weakness. He has something going on and he calls it the thorn in the flesh, right? We don't know what it is. There's a lot of conjecture. It could be his eyesight, right? It could be that he just can't see well, um, or some other ailment, or it could be, some people think it's a sin keeps committing and he can't stop committing it. It's this thing that keeps and it keeps him humble, right? We really don't know. This is the image I get. If you ever work with wood or even if you, I don't know, handle a stick like you, you know, you're picking up sticks, do you ever get a splinter and it defies every effort to get it out? Like with your fingernails, you're like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And then you get, you know, a tweezer. If you can find the tweezers, impossible to find the tweezers. They're nowhere to be found. But then you finally find them and they won't get it out, you know, and it hurts like crazy. Like how does it hurt so much? This tiny little thing can make a grown man go, ah, you know, and it's so invariably I have to find the medical person

[11:01] in the house and we have to start digging with some major tools and there's just some jabbing and gouging and a lot of abuse. And eventually the hole is big enough that the splinter has no choice but to come up. Along with a lot of blood and pus. You don't want to hear about this, but so then, but what a relief when it finally comes out, right? What a relief when that thing finally gets out, even though this looks like a war zone there for a second, right? Now think about this for Paul. The thorn never comes out. The thorn doesn't come out. It's in there all the time. It's bugging him all the time, right? It's bigger than a splinter. It never comes out. He prays about it. So he'll live with it. He'll live with it. He'll live with it all the time, but he's come to peace with it. Isn't that interesting? Because God gave him a word about it. And this is what God says, right? The thorn is there because God needs him to be humble, especially given the great things he's been privy to and his desire to use that to his advantage, right? So what does our reading say? This is what Paul says. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, my grace is all you need. And this is important. My power works best in weakness.

[12:14] You need to stay weak. You need to stay humble. That's how I will work most powerfully through you is if you understand your own weakness and that you even embrace your own weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me. That's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses. I take pleasure in my weaknesses? Sounds like a sort of a masochist, but he's kind of turned the corner here. He finally understands that this thorn in his flesh is somehow a benefit to him.

[12:52] Hold on to those thoughts, okay? Right? That's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong, right? The weakness is this, and he's strong because Christ works through him. Let's remember that. So hold on to all that and let's connect it to chapter one. So we got chapter one in the book. And one thing I want to do real quick is if ever I find a word that might be hard, I want to define it for you. And so one word that she uses in chapter one is theodicy, T-H-E-O-D-I-C-Y. She doesn't define it, which is fine, but theodicy is the theological study of why evil exists in the world. And that is very obviously very germane to this topic of disability. Why am I disabled? So that's a theodicy question. Okay, so put that aside. We've defined a word that you might run across and I'll save you a trip to look it up. So the book starts, now this is really, the book starts like, you go to chapter one. I'm not talking about the foreword and the intro and all, but I'm talking about chapter one. The book starts with her complaint, and it's a really a fair one, that people, and especially Christians, this is hard to hear. This is the

[14:04] part that's hard for me to hear. Especially Christians don't really relate to her and her disability in a respectful way. So Christians are maybe worse at this than people who are not. So therefore, you don't want to read the whole text. Right? Right Right Right Right and said, God told me to pray for you. And that really sums it up. And I want you to think about that sentence, right? God told me to pray for you. Could I say it in a more condescending way so you would get it? But I don't think I need, I don't want to. It would hurt too much. God told me to pray for you. I don't even know how to do it. So here's the problem, right? Here's two problems. First off, this person is claiming a special revelation from God. God told me, he, God told me, okay, there's a special revelation from God. Here's your parenthesis, right? Remember, Paul did not want to stand on the great revelation that he received from God. Remember that? That's interesting. And his one was, his was real. I don't think this person, I mean, I don't honestly know. Maybe God did tell that person to come up and pray for the author. I just don't think it would have looked like that. Okay. I just don't think it would have looked like that. Right.

[15:34] don't know. So right away, the person comes up to her and claims a special word from God, which is nice for them. You know, God has such an open channel to that person, and there's people in the rest of the church who spend all their life wondering what God is saying, like honestly asking God, what are you telling me? But here, this person has it like on one, you know? Good for you, right? I'm trying to be a little sarcastic, but not too mean, all right? I'm working on that. So we spent a lifetime looking for that kind of insight, and this person has it right away. So what is, okay, I've got a special line to God, and what does God say to the person, not the author? He says to that person, you need to set yourself up as the spiritual caregiver of this poor disabled person that you've never met before. Would God tell you to do that? Maybe. I mean, I'm not going to rule it out, but it just seems like a good idea. I mean, I'm not going to rule it out, but it just seems unlikely, right? I don't think, because there's sort of some power dynamics going on there. I'm going to pray for you. I have this word from God. It's just, it's a mess. It's a mess. A lot of boundaries being missed, right? Okay, so that is point, I want to point out that this is, this

[16:50] is missing all sorts of boundaries, right? To get in somebody's face like that and tell them that you know better than them, you know more than them, and you're also going to be their spiritual person. Guide and shepherd and pastor even, right? Or intermediary. And so she's, she's in a quandary all of a sudden. What do I say to this person? There's all sorts of things I want to say to this person, our author says, but it just doesn't work out. If I just tell them, oh, you're missing some boundaries right now, it becomes a longer conversation and even more of her time is wasted, right? So what's the point?

[17:31] I think the easiest way out of it is just let that person pray for, for you and get it, go out of the way, but her dignity is at stake in this moment. And so she doesn't choose to do it. So she's tried all sorts of things. Here are, I mean, I can think of some replies. One would be, I don't know you and you don't know me. You don't know what I need. You don't know anything about me. You know, God tells me different things than he tells you. What do we make of that? It could be a long conversation. God speaks in different ways to different people. Or please leave me alone. I don't want you praying for me. I love, I love how my children are assertive in a good way, in a bad way, but I let it go because I think it's good. So one time, he's not here, so that's okay. But Asher was, it was bedtime and he was just, he was in a, he was in a, in a mood. And he said, well, we're going to pray for you at bedtime. You know, he said, no, keep your prayers to yourself. And we did, you know, I thought, you know what he's putting up, like we can't force a prayer on to him. So I thought, okay, this is where we go. Right. We're not going to pray. We're not going to pray for you where you can hear us at least, but you might pray

[18:52] for you. But I thought, you know, I want him to be that assertive if somebody else were to come up to him and go, I'm going to pray for you right now. Right be like, I don't know you. Keep your prayer to yourself. We don't know what this is. Okay.

[19:05] So the problem is, it seems like all these really healthy and good boundary things that she could say end up making it all take a lot longer, and the person doesn't get it anyways, right? So there actually is this real wisdom in scripture. It comes directly from Jesus. Do you know what it is? It says, don't throw your pearls before swine, which sounds horrible, but it's really, really good advice. And all it means is, you have this wisdom, but if you try to give it to somebody who's just not ready for it or won't understand it, then you're wasting your time and their time, and don't do it. You know, wait, wait till the right moment, right? Wait till the right moment. Or it could be, don't preach the gospel to somebody who's not receptive to it in that moment. Wait until there's, you know. But the word swine is a tough one. It's a tough one. It's a funny word, swine. You know, it's kind of a funny word. Anyway, so don't spend energy or wisdom on a person who's not ready for it. Don't throw your pearls before swine. Don't throw your pearls before swine. Don't throw your pearls before swine. Don't throw your pearls before swine. And so she's figured out the preferred, her preferred response, at least in this one

[20:03] encounter was, I don't need prayer. My body has already been sanctified and redeemed. Now that's, that caught my attention. Okay. That caught my attention right away. My body has already been sanctified and redeemed. Now that answer didn't work, again, with the person that she was talking to. So she has to endure all these well-meaning people. But I hope as we read, as we read this book, that at a minimum, we won't be those people. Okay. At a minimum, we won't be those people. And at a maximum, we can understand, expand our understanding of how to relate to disabled people. And I think we can get better. And I think it has to do with what Paul is talking about here. It has to do with a lot of things that we're going to unpack as we go. So one idea that she works out in her first chapter, and Victoria touched on it last week, is there's a difference between cure and healing. And I think some people came to her wanting to cure her. And her response essentially is, thank you, I guess, but really healing has, healing is a different matter. And on some level, I have, I have healing. Okay. And so here's what she says on page nine. I'm just going to quote the book. It's really good. This is the one to underline in the book, if you have it. Curing is

[21:18] a physical process. It's individual, usually fairly rapid, fairly is in parentheses, and concentrates on the healing. And so I think that's a different matter. And I think some people came to her with the idea that healing is a process. Right. Right Right Right Right And so she uses this distinction to describe the man who was born blind and who's given his sight back in John 9, which is a fascinating thing to read. Read that if you have time. And then, so he's cured in John 9, but he's also healed in John 9. So in one chapter, we have a person experiencing both cure and healing. And so she makes the point. The cure is his eyesight's improved. But she makes a point that later in life, his eyesight will dim again. So it's not permanent, right? It's a temporary, but it is for the physical. But the healing that happens later in the chapter is his entry into the family of faith. That's healing, right? He becomes, he says, Lord, I believe, right? That's the moment he's healed and he's reconnected to. Now, actually, he's thrown out of the synagogue, but he has to now connect with the Christian community in his town, right? So that healing won't go away. It's ongoing and it's a process. And so those are helpful to remember.

[22:51] And that makes sense of her answer to this helpful person, I'll put helpful in quotes there, who demanded to pray for her. I don't need prayer. My body has already been sanctified and redeemed. Now she says her body. It's interesting, right? And we can probably unpack that at a later date. But she's kind of pointing to the things you think I need, I think I need different things. Okay? And that's, I think it's a good reminder. How would, why would we assume we know what everybody else thinks? They need, we wouldn't it be better for that person to have just come up to her and asked her what she needs rather than telling her what God told them she needs? Think about it, right? So here's where I want to end. And I want to get into the why, the why, this is a big one. Why do helpful people try to help in such unhelpful ways? And this is where I got my conviction reading the book, right?

[23:41] So here's my sense is that if you meet a person who's disabled, and this could be unseen disability, or you see them, and they are physically disabled. You don't see their mental illness right away, but you experience in a conversation with them, or you sense or you see them and they are physically disabled.

[24:01] Meeting people, this is the thing to take away, meeting people with disabilities makes us uncomfortable and anxious. I say that again, meeting people with disabilities makes us uncomfortable and anxious.

[24:17] And that's the thing to remember because that's I think the key to it all right there. So and our author says as much, she says all these awkward interactions, these difficulty having normal conversations with people, as if we're not in the presence of another human being. Like treating actually just having a different kind of conversation with a person because they're disabled is already sort of centering this idea that they're disabled and we're not. And it's actually focusing on our own anxiety. Anxiety and discomfort rather than on that person, right? And so we're doing all these things to make ourselves feel better, which is astounding when you're in the presence of a disabled person. So she says, and this is really I think insightful, she says, perhaps seeing a disabled person reminds us that someday, and here's the one caveat, unless we die suddenly, so set that in your mind, if you die suddenly, this may not happen to you. But if you live a good long life, you're reminded by a disabled person that if you live a good long life, you too will be disabled.

[25:19] Do you believe me? I'm 55. I believe it quite easily. You know what I mean? Right? The more, the older and older you get, the more disabled you get. What have I done? And we don't like to face that, right? It's true. It's like, so here's some things that I know are just going to get away from me. Walking, talking, eating, reading, lifting things, all those things are going to get harder the older I get. And if I live long enough, I'm going to lose the ability to live longer. I'm going to lose the ability to do all of those things. Someone's going to have to feed me, all right? Someone's going to have to push my wheelchair. Somebody's going to have to pick things up for me, right? Hi, Krista. Thank you. She's a bit younger than me, so I figured it out. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We'll hire somebody to do all this stuff.

[26:08] So for me, the message of chapter one is that we actually need to work on ourselves first and manage our own anxiety. We need to manage our own anxiety before we understand disability more. Does that make sense? I think it's a really good place to start, to start with ourselves. And that it has to do with anxiety, right? And I recognize that. I'm not going to speak for you, but I honestly recognize that. Being in the presence of a person who's in a wheelchair, it makes me anxious.

[26:36] And why? Does it remind me that I will someday be disabled? Does I have this sense that something's not right in the world? Do I have this sense that I need to do something for it? them that they haven't even asked me to because I have this sort of overactive sense of needing to help people even who don't ask for it, right? There's all sorts of things going on. And so, you know what? This is just a really good thing to remember. A great antidote to anxiety, humor. Humor is a very good antidote to anxiety. And so that's why I love this author because at the end of every chapter is a top 10 list. I'm going to spoil the first one for you. These are hilarious. And so I think it's kind of all working together. She's trying to help us kind of laugh at ourselves. As long as it's like nobody feels too bad coming away from this, probably all right. But so she has, you know, top 10 recommended remedies. These are the things that I guess have honestly happened to her. People have come up to her. And her disability, she never actually tells us the medical name for it, but it seems like she has a leg curvature in her spine. And so she's trying to help us kind of laugh at ourselves. And so I think that's kind of

[27:43] a good thing to remember. And so she has a leg curvature in her spine. And so she's trying to help us find a leg that is doesn't work, turns blue. And she's tried all sorts of medical things, but people but sometimes she's in a like a scooter or a wheelchair. Sometimes she walks with a cane.

[27:57] So people have come up to her and just told her like, here's some free medical advice. Free medical. Okay. So here's the top 10 recommended remedies. Strangers recommended these treatments for my disabilities. Treatments for my disabilities. Treatments are in quotes here. Number 10. Remember Dave Letterman? He always started with 10. I like that. Usually the first one is supposed to be the funniest and sometimes it's kind of anticlimactic, but we'll see what happens. All right. Number 10, sleep with a bar of soap. Okay. That's not even medical advice. That's just like, I don't know what it is. Okay. Number nine, put garlic in your socks. It sounds like the same thing. It's stupid. Okay. Eight, get more sun. Avoid the sun. Wait a second here. Okay. Get more sun. Avoid the sun. Avoid the sun. Right. Right Right They've explained the process. The Epsom salts will draw out the disability like it's a substance that can be pulled out of your body. Okay, five, take vitamin C, magnesium, iron, or sometimes all three at once just for fun. Number four, drink bone broth. Everybody loves bone broth nowadays, right? Number four, drink bone broth or pickle juice, but not together, never together. Because what, you might explode?

[29:31] I don't know, it doesn't say. Number three, this one's got to hurt the most, just try to relax. You know, if you tell somebody to relax, it's guaranteed that they will not relax. So I think we should ban that. Like, just don't tell anyone to relax, because it doesn't work. Okay, number two, try jogging. Wait, she's disabled, I don't get this. Try jogging. After a while, your legs will remember how to walk, because they have brains and memory and such, okay.

[29:59] Number one, and this is the best one, hit your other leg with a hammer to take your mind off the pain. So that's funny. So again, like I say, it's like, humor can dispel some of our anxiety, and I think that's good. So, but again, I think that when we, I'm going to say we, when we say dumb things like that, it's prioritizing our own comfort over the disabled person's comfort, and even their boundaries. So here's a few things I'm thinking about the next time I meet a disabled person. And this is just the beginning. I'm hoping to grow more, right? But one is that I don't, I don't think I need to treat them as any different than anyone else, right? Only if their disability prevents them from doing something they really need to do, and there's nobody else closer to them, right? So if, if they really need to get in a building, and it doesn't have an automatic door, and they can't open a door, and I'm the only person around, then I would go up to them. But I, but I might ask them first, do you need help opening this door? And not just assume, right?

[31:00] I don't need to fix them. I don't need to cure them. I don't need to heal them. Only Jesus can do that, right? I don't need to give them medical advice. I don't have medical advice. I don't know anything about bone growth. And, and to remember, everything that maybe I'm tempted to say to them has already been said to them. And obviously it didn't help because they're still disabled, right? So I'm not going to tell them anything they don't know.

[31:23] You know, and I don't take medical advice from total strangers, so why would I expect somebody else to take medical advice from somebody they don't know, right? And you know what? I don't even need to go out of my way to greet them or acknowledge them, which I thought about this one for a while, but I think it makes sense, right? If, if, if it wasn't normal and natural to say hello to that person, why would I go out of my way to say I'm in a crowded room? I don't need to cross this crowded room just to talk to a disabled person, right? Because then I'm, again, I'm the, I'm the savior. I'm the hero. I'm doing something. I'm actually putting their disability at the center of that interaction. It's not developing naturally, right?

[32:08] So, and perhaps most important for me, importantly for me, I need to own and remember and embrace that disability is most likely in my future. And I think this is the key. Disability is in my future. And my weaknesses will grow in time. And God says, this could be good. You may be a more powerful tool in my hands if you can own your own weakness. And don't I want to do that? Does Paul want to do that? Does Paul say I take pleasure in my weakness? I'm not there yet. I can't say that yet. Praise, I pray God that I may someday. So, and I'm not saying that I'm disabled in the same way that someone else who can't walk is disabled. I'm not. I'm not disabled in the same way they are. And I don't know what they're experiencing. But here's what I would say. If I deal with my own anxiety and I die to my own strength and I embrace my own weakness and I receive the strength to walk, and I embrace grace that's perfected in my weakness, as God tells the Apostle Paul, then I think I'm going to be a better companion to the disabled. And that's a start. That's a start. And we have more to come. Let's pray.

[33:16] Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for Amy Kenney and this book that she's written that's challenging. Thank you for that. And be with us on this journey, Father. We ask it in Jesus' name.