Born Mary Flannery O’Connor, she’s best known as Flannery O’Connor, one of the American South’s most celebrated writers. Her stories brim with suffering and grace. When her beloved father died of lupus when she was fifteen, a devastated O’Connor threw herself into writing her first novel. Soon she herself was diagnosed with lupus, an incurable disease that took her life at thirty-nine. O’Connor’s writing reflects her physical and mental anguish. Novelist Alice McDermott said, “It was the illness I think that made her the writer that she is.”
We don’t know what the apostle Paul’s “thorn” was (2 Corinthians 12:7), though many have offered conjecture. We do know that Paul said, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me” (v. 8). We also know God didn’t do so (v. 9). This humbled Paul. He notes how it kept him “from becoming conceited” (v. 7). Paul’s thorn formed him and made him the apostle that he was. But the thorn wasn’t all, for with the thorn came God’s sufficient grace and perfecting power, so the tormented apostle could declare, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).
The thorns in our lives, whatever they may be, form us. They make us who we are. But the thorns aren’t all there is. As Paul and Flannery O’Connor and countless others have witnessed over the long arc of human history, God’s grace is sufficient for us.
What are the “thorns” in your life? How can you permit God’s grace and strength to be enough for you today?
Dear God, Your grace is sufficient for me.
For further study, read God Was There All Along.
When Paul refers to “the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2), he means “paradise” (v. 4)—the realm where God dwells. As he recounts this vision of heaven where he heard “inexpressible things” (v. 4), he deflects attention from himself with the words, “I know a man . . .” (v. 2). The apostle was profoundly impacted by having seen such astonishing things. But he ran the risk of becoming unduly proud of his experience. The purpose of the “thorn in [his] flesh” (v. 7) was to encourage Paul’s humble dependence on God. When we experience trials, we also can be assured of God’s sufficient grace.
