Letter from a Weak Person

(The following is a letter written to prisoners in Alabama. It seemed good to share this with others.)

Letter from a Weak Person

Greetings!

I am a missionary to Japan. We first went there over 40 years ago when I was in the US Army. I have a wife, three children and five grandchildren. This letter is being written from the USA. My father-in-law is 85 years old and is very ill right now. I borrowed money from a Japanese friend so that I could fly to the states to help out my wife with her 80 year old mother and father in the nursing home.

At first, I thought it might not be good to write you. You have your own set of problems and troubles to deal with. Why would you want to hear from someone who is struggling too? Then I began to think about the great Apostle Paul who wrote much of the New Testament. Here are portions of scriptures that he wrote:

2 Cor 12:9-10

9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. NIV

Rom 7:14-20

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! NIV

I am a missionary and a minister, but feel like I am very weak by my own power. We are struggling about my wife’s father and mother. Our grandchildren are having problems. We are being tried about our financial support. So what good can we do? Is there any way that we can help someone? Some times I think there is nothing for me to go on living for. But as I wrote this letter this morning an email came in from Australia. It was from a minister. He has been fighting non-Hodgkinsons lymphoma for nearly 6 years. He has suffered terribly from the symptoms and treatment. He told me that I am one of his best friends and how much I helped him as a minister.

No matter how weak we are, there is someone else more weak than us. One thing I can do is pray. I have been doing that for more than 55 years and I plan to keep it up until I die or Jesus comes back to take us all to Heaven. So please know I am weak but I am praying for you. You may be weak, but you too can pray for yourself and others too.

No matter what happens don’t give up. Paul was weak but he kept walking. How about it? Let’s agree to keep on walking with God. There will be hard times, but He is with us no matter what we are going through.

God bless you richly!

Dan Corbett

“Reaching One Among Millions”