NOT BY MY POWER BUT WITH YOUR SPIRIT
«Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit» (Zechariah 4:6).
IT WAS the summer of 2003 and a young woman, age twenty-seven, was at the point of depression. She had been suffering terrible pain for a long time as a consequence of a fall she had had on a trip with her students. Three of them had disobeyed the teachers’ instructions and had gone walking toward the river in a dangerous area. When she was not able to hear the voices of her students, she decided to go running to catch up to them, without noticing the irregular terrain. Suddenly, she fell. The fall was so hard that the pain did not allow her to get up again. She wanted to be able to continue running to bring back her students to where the rest of the group was, but it was impossible.
Once she was at home, she began a round of treatments, but the problem did not lessen. The doctor, looking at the MRI, explained to her: «You have slightly crushed the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae, and that is what is causing your pain. You need physical therapy so that the sciatic nerve stops being pinched.»
She, who had had a happy childhood and adolescence and no health problems, suddenly saw her life surrounded by shadows, and she was not prepared for that trial. She surrendered completely to suffering, to the point that the pain blinded her understanding. When she finally realized it, negativism and melancholy had taken hold of all her words and the expressions on her face. She was at a complete standstill in her life—a stage she did not know how to face. Depression made an appearance.
Dear friend, perhaps you are experiencing a similar situation. Perhaps your life has been an easy path to travel up to now, but now it is not and you do not know how to face this trial for which no one has ever prepared you. If this is so, you need to know that you are not alone: you have God at your side, accompanying you in your pain, and there are people who love you, whom you can ask for help. Do it.
Cultivate faith, patience, and a spirit of prayer. Do not allow the enemy to ravage your life. Even though you cannot see it now, you have a long future ahead of you.
Remember that it is not with your power, but with His Spirit.
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Take From: Daily Devotions for Women’s 2020
«One Day at a Time»
From: Patricia Muñoz Bertozzi
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Magda Sanz T