The Amazing Pinkie

Dan Kunz

Earlier this year I had an unfortunate accident involving a boat and trailer and a motorhome. As I tried to hook up my boat trailer to the back of our motorhome, it rolled down a slight incline and I couldn’t stop it. As I envisioned the trailer poking a hole in the back of the motorhome, I grabbed the trailer to try to stop it. The good news is that it didn’t poke a hole in the back of the motorhome. The bad news is that what stopped it was my hand between the trailer and the motorhome. I ended up with seven stitches in the palm of my left hand and multiple fractures of my pinkie. (Stupid hurts!)

After the stitches were removed and the splint came off my hand, my doctor suggested a trip to the occupational therapist, to regain full use of my hand. It’s difficult to do a lot of things without a fully functional pinkie. During that visit, I learned a number of significant things. First of all, fingers are some of the slowest healing bones in a person’s body. It’s not uncommon for swelling to take up to six months to disappear! I also learned that your pinkie and ring finger provide the majority of the strength needed to grip something. Who would have thought their pinkie was so strong!

Over the past eight months, many people in our country, including Christians, have had their strength challenged in multiple ways. In some cases, for those who contracted the coronavirus, it was physical strength. In other cases, it was the strength of their beliefs or the strength of their faith. For many people, the strength of their willpower to get out of bed or go to work was in question on a daily basis.

Thankfully, for many people, they found out they were stronger than they thought. This realization was one of several actual blessings that came out of a very, very difficult year. When God’s people realize that they don’t fight alone, it is invigorating! God encourages us, lifts us, leads us, and saves us. Even though we may think our faith is weak and we are at the mercy of our adversaries, God takes us, as fragile and small as we may be (like a pinkie), and makes us into warriors. Who knew? “You can do it!” God assures us with his help we can be victorious and, indeed, already are victors.

2 Corinthians 12:10 “That is why I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then am I strong.”

2020 has been a year most people would like to forget, but during our celebration of Thanksgiving this week, God’s people can actual thank God for the challenges of this year. These challenges have shown us our weakness, but they’ve also shown us God’s strength at work in us and through us. Paul had it absolutely correct, “For whenever I am weak, then am I strong.”