Posts Tagged ‘tough times’

Strength

{ April 17, 2008 @ 4:17 pm } · { Musings }
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When are we strongest?

Is it when no one else can see any problems in our lives and we seem invincible? Or is it really when we are able to overcome our pride enough to go to someone and say, “Hey…I need help. I can’t go through this alone”? Are we stronger then?

I once heard a story. In it, a wise man told a young boy that he could fight his fear and win, because he was bigger than his fear. Fear he pointed out, was inside the boy, and surely the boy was bigger than anything inside him. The same could be said of pride. Surely we can be bigger and stronger than our pride. It’s inside us. Surely we can fight it and win.

Sometimes asking for help isn’t what you may think. Sometimes, a person may scream for help in many little ways, not necessarily with their mouth:

  • They seek extra attention
  • They get quiet
  • They act out
  • They leave things undone
  • They deliberately offend others

All to get someone to realise that they need help to go through their situation. But all too often, it’s not realised and the person continues to walk alone.

So are we stronger when we overcome our pride and ask for help? Admit that we can’t face every obstacle alone?

I think that sometimes strength is misunderstood. If you’re strong, we figure you don’t have to fight any more. All foes should be scared off. But that’s not what it means. Sometimes strength is getting up…again. It’s saying “no” one more time. It’s opening your eyes in the morning, looking yourself in the mirror and deciding that, just for today, you will work your hardest to reach your dreams, no matter the obstacles. It’s being real enough to cry, yet determined enough to keep walking through those tears. It’s looking around you, seeing the world crash in, and being survivor enough to start looking for usable pieces of rubble to rebuild.

Strength isn’t proved by the absence of challenge. It’s proved by how you handle it.

You have two choices: you beat it, or it beats you. So which is it?

Unsafe safety

{ April 15, 2008 @ 4:10 pm } · { Musings }
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Is it really “safe”-to be “safe”?

That doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. Of course it’s “safe” to be “safe”; they wouldn’t call it “safe” if it wasn’t. But might it not be better to take a few risks, if it means avoiding a bigger danger? Should we risk being unsafe in order to be truly safe?

Suppose you are in a building, and it catches fire. There are flames across the door; the room you are in will go up next. The only way out: a third story window overlooking the backyard. So…jump? Or roast?

Of course you’d jump. You’ve got to escape that fire! But under normal circumstances, jumping out of a third story window is not going to enter your mind as a “safe” or “normal” thing to do. In fact, try that, and they’ll probably send you to play with the men in the white coats. But with a wall of flame behind you, suddenly the whole circumstance changes. Now the only “safe” action is to risk your life by jumping out of the window.

How about some less obvious stuff. Is it “safe” to trust that little feeling or prompting about which school you should go to? What about your future? What about the little voice that says to go ahead and major in something that seems crazy, or to go ahead and take a job that seems way off your career path? Is it really “safe” to do something “crazy”, like get married and move to a place you know nothing about?

What if risking the unsafe is best thing for you? What if staying would really endanger you in the long run? Could you do it? Can you trust that God knows what’s best for you?

What if everything you do that makes people shake their heads and think you’re completely crazy is really just another step on the road to something awesome? What if every struggle you go through that all your friends and family think you could’ve avoided just by doing XYZ or not doing XYZ is really planned out to equip you to deal with something down the road? Maybe it’s something you don’t see now, but when it comes you realise: you couldn’t have dealt with this event now without knowledge gained from that event in your past. Maybe it’s not even you. What if, one day, your son or daughter comes to you and says, “Hey, I don’t know how to deal with this”…and you’ve been right where they are?

The future is unknown. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in the next five minutes, let alone the rest of my life. What if the rough stuff I’m going through now is really just another mile marker on the “broken road that lead me straight to you”? What if I look back on all this stuff now and say “I know better how to live, love, and give because of all that stuff that happened when I was 20″? Shouldn’t I take these risks now, then?

Take the risks now. You may need them later.