Every two weeks, my husband and I replace the glucose sensor on our son's arm.

He has Type 1 diabetes, and despite all the advances in medical technology, the procedure still hurts. To make it a little easier, we began calling it his "strength sensor."

A friend happened to witness one of these sensor changes not long ago. I caught her sympathetic expression. She seemed to think we were inventing a comforting fairy tale to soften an unpleasant reality.

I understood her reaction. Watching your child endure pain—whether from illness itself or from the treatments that keep him alive—is one of the hardest experiences a parent can face.

But recently I realized something surprising.

We are not pretending.

That sensor really is his strength.

The thought came to me while reading the New Testament. I paused over the Apostle Paul's words in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." For years, I regarded those words as beautiful theology. Now they have become the language of our family's daily life.

Our culture tends to see illness as a defect to be fixed, an injustice to overcome, or, at best, an unfortunate interruption to normal life. Medicine rightly seeks to cure disease and relieve suffering. We should be grateful for every scientific advance that makes that possible.

But Christianity offers another perspective.

It does not teach that God delights in suffering or sends illness to punish us. Rather, it teaches that God can transform even what He does not will into something life-giving. Illness has a way of stripping away the illusion of self-sufficiency. It teaches us to ask for help instead of insisting we can manage alone. It reminds us that control is often an illusion and that trust is not weakness but wisdom.

It is precisely where we say, "I can't," that God answers, "I am with you."

The saints understood this paradox not because they enjoyed suffering, but because many of them experienced it firsthand. St. John Chrysostom wrote that illnesses are given "not for punishment but for healing; not for destruction but for salvation." Elder Paisios of Mount Athos observed that a sick person becomes as dependent as a child—and that such dependence can bring us closer to God than the confidence of those who rely only on themselves.

These are difficult words. They should never be used to dismiss another person's pain or to suggest that suffering is somehow desirable. Anyone who has watched a loved one struggle knows better than that.

Yet they point toward a truth that modern life often overlooks: weakness can shape us in ways that strength never could.

Our son's diabetes has changed our family in countless ways. It has taught us patience we never knew we needed. It has taught us gratitude for ordinary days that once seemed unremarkable. It has made us more attentive to one another and more aware of how deeply we depend—not only on medicine and one another—but ultimately on God.

Every new "strength sensor" is still a medical necessity. It still hurts. I would take my son's disease away in an instant if I could.

But I can no longer see that little device as merely a reminder of what he has lost. It has also become a reminder of what God is quietly building within him—and within us.

Perhaps our weaknesses are not simply burdens to be carried. Perhaps, by God's grace, they become something else entirely.

What if the very things that make us feel most fragile are, in fact, the invisible wings God gives us, teaching us, little by little, how to fly?