Interesting thoughts re: Strengths & Weaknesses

Just sharing here a post I've been thinking about off & on ever since I read it for the first time over at heart to heart with holley.

In support of your strengths (and weaknesses)...

I love words.

Always have.

I don't like numbers.

Always have.

Are you nodding your head with me?

Shaking it back and forth in disagreement?

Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton, authors of Now, Discover Your Strengths, would say there's a reason for your particular response.

They explain our brains are actually wired to response in certain ways.

"By the age of three each of your hundred billion neurons have formed fifteen thousand synaptic connections with other neurons....Your pattern of threads, extensive, intricate and unique, is woven."

Pretty amazing, huh?

Marcus and Donald go on to say that by age sixteen half of these connections are lost. "Oh, no!" I thought.

But it's actually a great big, "Oh, yes!" to who God created you to be.

The connections dropped allow you to focus intensely on the remaining ones, your strengths. As Marcus and Donald say,

"Your smartness and your effectiveness depend on how well you capitalize on your strongest connections. Nature forces you to shurt down billions of connections precisely so that you can be freed up to exploit the ones remaining. Losing connections isn't something to be concerned about. Losing connections is the point."

In essence, the most vibrant connections become our strengths and those that fade away become our weaknesses.

I loved this because there are parts of me I wish I could change. I'm sure no one else feels that way.

I don't have many decorating, details, or dinner-making connections in my brain. No, ma'am.

But it turns out that God has physically wired me with strengths that let me fulfill His purpose for my life. And He helps me do so by strategically creating certain weaknesses too. It gives "strength made perfect in weakness" a whole new meaning.

Our divinely created strengths are actually supported by our weaknesses because if we were good at everything we wouldn't focus on much of anything.

Maybe no one else struggles with this but for me, this was some of the best news I've heard in a long time. Sigh of relief.

For my husband's sake, I'm still going to try to keep those weaknesses a little in check (who made coffee without a filter last week because she's not so good at details? ahem).

But I'm also going to celebrate who I am and who you are...fearfully and wonderfully made, strengths and weaknesses both, woven together just right.

Care to join me?

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