Strength in Vulnerability

My paddle fell.

At the most important moment of the game. In front of everyone. Three thousand eyes watching my hands that couldn't hold a piece of wood.

I started crying.

On the ping-pong table. In front of the camp champions. In front of Giuseppe, who had taught me everything. In front of God.

I couldn't stop.

"Luke, is everything okay?" Giuseppe approached.

"No." First true words I'd said in days. "Nothing is okay. I'm not okay."

Silence.

"For a week I've been watching you play and telling you wise things about God and ping-pong." The tears wouldn't stop. "But I don't know how to play. Don't know how to win. Don't even know how to hold a paddle without shaking."

Giuseppe sat beside me.

"So?"

"So I'm a fake. I see beautiful things in others and can't do them myself." I looked at my hands. "I'm good at observing life. I stink at living it."

Giuseppe picked up my paddle. He turned it in his hands.

"Luke, who was Paul before becoming an apostle?"

"A persecutor."

"Who was Peter before becoming the rock of the church?"

"Someone who denied Jesus."

"Who was David when he defeated Goliath?"

"A boy."

Giuseppe handed me back the paddle. "They all had one thing in common."

"What?"

"They knew they were inadequate."

Pause.

"Paul wrote: 'My power is made perfect in weakness' (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV)." Giuseppe picked up a ball. "He didn't say 'despite weakness.' He said 'in weakness.'"

"I don't understand."

"Want to play a game?"

"I just told you I'm terrible."

"I know." Giuseppe went to the other side of the table. "That's why I want to play with you."

"Giuseppe..."

"Serve to me."

I served. Badly. Crooked. Giuseppe didn't take it.

"Your point," he said.

"Giuseppe, you missed on purpose."

"No." He looked me in the eyes. "I chose to play at your level so we could play together."

My heart stopped.

"Like Jesus," Giuseppe continued. "He could have stayed in heaven, perfect and unreachable. He chose to come down to our level. To become weak like us."

We played ten minutes. Giuseppe missing on purpose. Me missing for real. But we played together.

"This is what incarnation is," he said mid-game. "God choosing to be vulnerable to be with us."

Point after point, I understood.

My weakness wasn't the problem. It was the invitation. Every time I confessed I wasn't good, I allowed Giuseppe to be compassionate. Every time I trembled, he could comfort me.

"Vulnerability isn't weakness," I whispered.

"What is it?" Giuseppe asked.

"It's courage. The courage to let yourself be seen for who you are."

Giuseppe stopped the ball. "And what does it allow others to do?"

"To really love. Not the mask. The person."

That afternoon, I did the scariest thing of my life.

I went to evening worship and took the microphone.

"My name is Luke. I'm autistic. And I'm pretending to be wiser than I am."

Total silence.

"For a week, I've been telling you what I see at the ping-pong table. But I never told you that I don't know how to play. That I'm terrified of everything. That I live in numbers because people scare me."

Someone started crying.

"Today I discovered that Paul didn't convert the world despite his thorn in the flesh. He converted it because of his thorn in the flesh. Because when we're weak, God can be strong through us."

"And when we're vulnerable, others can really love us."

Anna, the one with the dead father, stood up. "Luke, can I hug you?"

"I hate hugs," I said. "But... you can try."

She did. And for the first time in nineteen years, a hug didn't hurt.

Because she'd given it to me. Not to the mask.

"All those who humble themselves will be exalted" (Luke 14:11, NIV).

It's not a promise of the future.

It's a law of love.

When you show yourself for who you are, you allow others to see you.

And what is seen can be loved.

For the first time.

Really.