…makes you stronger.

We toss around this saying in many situations – in the class that kicks our butt, the lab that made us work really hard, the ridiculous and hurtful things people say and do, the inconvenient sickness, the difficult family situations, and many, many more.  Most of the time, this is actually true.  But most of the time we’re also overexaggerating.  That test isn’t going to kill you at all – in fact the worst it can do is give you a paper cut and a failing grade.   Being lonely isn’t going kill you, it’s just going to change the dynamic of things for a while.  Changing circumstances and moving states or countries isn’t going to kill you, it’s just going to be different for a while.  This sickness isn’t going to kill you (hopefully), it just makes life different and sometimes difficult for a while.   All of these things we generally associate with being negative.  In  fact, I’d like to ask you to think of these things as positive, and I’ll tell you why.

Failing a test, well, I can’t find much good in that, right?  😉  Wrong.  Perhaps failing that test will cause you to have to take the class over again and when you take it over again, you’ll be the person everyone goes to for help, and by teaching the material yourself, you learn it better and it serves you better in the long run.  Perhaps failing that test will get you kicked out of grad school, but then you find that doing hurricane relief with the Red Cross is really where you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to be doing.  Sometimes God allows these “bad” things to happen to facilitate something incredible.  Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t need to study for that test, failing usually isn’t the best option.  But good can come of it if it happens.

Being lonely.  It isn’t fun, nor does it usually get better when friends around you are getting engaged and married and starting families.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m infinitely happy for these people, and I pray God’s blessing on their lives every day.  I want other people to be happy and to not be lonely.  But, being lonely can be a good thing.  It means that you can leave your clothes in a pile on the floor and no one cares, or your dishes in the sink overnight.  It also gives you time to reflect on the things that have happened in your life and the chance to really depend on God.  Who better to fill the hole of friendship and relationship than the one and only true God?  I have to be satisfied with who I am as a person, my faults and my shortcomings, before I can ask someone else to come into my life and bear my burdens as well as their own.  I have to be truly satisfied in Christ, being in the world but not of the world, and being lonely helps to give me reason to rely on God – for everything.  So, there is good in being lonely.

Changing circumstances and moving.  I’ve expressed my views on this in previous posts, but let me sum it up here.  I’ve moved from Rhode Island to Ohio, from Ohio to Massachusetts, from Massachusetts temporarily back to Ohio, and from Ohio to Michigan.  The last three of these have happened in the last four years, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.  Even though at the time, the move seemed difficult and insane, they turned out to be exactly what I needed.  At Gordon I found friendship and a church family and my calling.  There were hard times and good times, tough times and sad times.  But Christ brought me through.  Then I moved to Michigan, and so far I’ve found mostly dark clouds.  But you have to face those clouds to find the silver lining – and that takes time.  It’s only been 3.5 months, but I’ve still seen good in my time here, places of witness and people who love God.  There is good in this, in time.

Sickness.  Okay, you’re saying.  There’s no way you can find good in this.  Try me.  I’ve been abnormally healthy for all of my life, given that I have CF.  I’ve been very fortunate.  But even I have good days and bad days.  On the good days, it’s easy to be cheerful and smile, act like my life is just like yours: normal.  It’s easy to put the medications and therapies in the back of my mind and forget that I got up really early to do my meds before coming to work when you just rolled out of bed.  On the bad days, it’s harder to act like everything is okay, like I’m not jealous of people who don’t have to worry about what they eat, what they touch, who they are around.  There are lots of small things that I’m self-conscious about that others make fun of, not realizing that it hurts.  For example, coughing.  When people scoot over and act like you have leprosy when you cough, or look at you like you’re a disruption, or when a teacher asks you to leave because the people around you can’t hear.  Or when people tell you that you’re not going to amount to anything in life because you’re sick.  Those are the bad days.  But even on the bad days, I am a witness for Christ, I can be someone who helps out those around me, regardless of how I feel.  In my CF, I’ve seen God work, I’ve seen him bring good out of it, particularly at Gordon.  And even now, battling another pathogen, I can see the good in it.  It’s all a matter of your attitude and how you look at it.

Let me add one more to the list.  Death.  My paternal grandmother’s passing just recently brought my great uncle his family, who never would have come all together unless she had passed away.  My maternal grandfather’s death gave my grandmother a new perspective on some things, and has caused one of her sons to move back home to be closer to her, bringing her family closer together.  Evangylena’s death from cancer at age 21 caught my entire class at Gordon by surprise.  Even in the sadness, her voice rang clear in the chapel and more people than ever have heard her incredible voice since her death.  Her death hit very close to home for me, and it called all of us to live every day to it’s fullest because we don’t know which day will be our last.

Even in death, and sometimes especially in death, we are stronger.  There is good that comes from these things, the hard things, the difficult things.  Strength that we could never have otherwise attained.  Love that we never would have found.  Faith that is stronger.  Hope that is purer.  Even on the hard days, in the bad times, in the sickness and the pain, we will be stronger.  God will be higher.  He will bring good from these things.  God is good.  ALL the time.