“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 
2 Corinthians 12:9

Thorns and Roses

There is a thread that does not snap 
when the thorn presses in. 
It does not fray when prayers go unanswered, or rather, when the answer is grace.
The thorn is not the failure of love, 
but the form it sometimes takes. 
It humbles the hand, slows the stride, teaches the soul to lean.

Tandem, tension, treasure

Power, we thought, would look like triumph. 
But it came cloaked in ache, 
perfecting itself not in our strength 
but in our surrender.

So we boast—not in the thorn, 
but in the thread that holds. 
Not in the wound, 
but in the grace that weaves through it.

The drop

Perfection and Power do not parade in strength;
they whisper through Weakness and Wishing. 
This is the apostolic witness: 
grace, sufficient and strong, 
threaded through the thorn.

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