Stronger than I seem

`People are drawn to your strength` is what I heard whispered in my ear this morning as I sought answers to the same unanswered questions during my prayer time. The words surprised me, since I was feeling neither strong nor particularly sought after by the people in my life.
The verse that comes to mind as I try to sort this out is Isaiah 42:3: A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick He will not snuff out. For so long I have felt like a smouldering wick, just hanging on, occasionally flaring brightly, but only for a brief moment...but I am still burning, sheltered from the wind by a gently cupped hand, waiting to be set to the right dry tinder. Like the bruised reed you may feel bent, broken, but you are not broken off, and given time, you will stand tall again at the water's edge.
There is a description often used for the hero of old movies, that of "quiet strength". I quite like it, it calls to mind gentle, kind men who, when called upon, step up and prove themselves men of action, power and resolve, rather than brutish, muscle bound heroes spoiling for a fight to prove their masculinity.
Several years ago a friend was going through some difficult circumstances and she asked me one day over coffee why she had to go through all of this nastiness when others didn't seem to. I remember saying to her, you get to deal with this because you are strong enough to. Someone else might not be. (And, of course, they are likely dealing with other problems). Indeed, just as we all have unique gifts and talents, so too we all have differing kinds of strength. There are the seemingly delicate wildflowers that somehow survive nature's harshest weather and the towering trees that snap in a windstorm. Personally I have long likened myself to the caragana bushes so common here on the prairies. Transplanted, I learned from Siberia, Mongolia & China, it is a hardy, drought resistant shrub, used both ornament ally and as a windbreak. Often maligned the caragana produces an abundance of sweet smelling flowers and if left the seed pods will burst and become new plants near the parent. I like the idea of being a hardy plant, able to weather brutal prairie winters as well as drought conditions. It bends in the wind. They are almost impossible to kill or to root out. I also like the imagery of the abundance of flowers and seeds this shrub produces, and how quickly it grows, and recovers from pruning. There is surprising strength in this humble and common plant. It is not something one immediately associates with strength. That's how I want to be. Bending in the wind, but not breaking, surviving storms and drought, producing with abundance.
‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
reads Zechariah 4:6, and there is the source of my strength. I am a woman of great strength and I know why I am still standing strong. Remember the old jingle; "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down"? That's me. I may falter, I may need to replant my feet & regain my footing, but at the end of the day I am standing firm.