Challenges can be painful in life. Whether it’s losing loved ones, losing your home, illnesses, or even losing your job. These are all painful circumstances that we all go through, but that doesn’t make it easier. Some of us may feel like the world is crushing down upon us and it is taking every ounce of energy that we must keep breathing. Others of us are still facing other challenges and it may be heavy, but you know that you have it.
We all experience life’s challenges in different ways, but no matter what, we can change those challenges into something better. I am not here to tell you that this is going to be easy; it won’t. It will be hard, and the harder life hits you, the harder it will be. But that is good. When things are hard, it means that you can’t remain who you are.
A lot of people fear change and for good reasons. Change means death, not your death hopefully, but the death of something you once knew and that is scary. We have a phrase for that, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Change means uncertainty and that is terrifying.
The Giving Tree
But I encourage you to look at this in a different light. There’s a children’s book called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. In this book there’s a tree that is there for this little kid, his parents put a swing on it, and he played for hours on that swing. As the boy grew so did the tree. His parents then built the boy a tree house and the boy spent even more hours with that tree. Years go by and he meets a girl and spends time with her under that tree. As he grows older it’s time for him to build his own home and he cuts down that tree to start it.
Many years went by and the tree that gave and gave and gave to that boy was nothing more than a stump. the man, who was very old at this point visited that stump, and the tree said to him, “I’m sorry but I have nothing more to give”. the old man smiled and stated, “The only thing I need now is a place to rest my feet”. “That I can do,” said the tree, and the old man sat for hours with that tree.
Death is Only the Beginning
Why does this story matter? That tree before it was planted was just an acorn. It was nothing special, but then it died. It was buried in the cold hard ground, soaked by the rain, and left to rot. But it did not rot. There were nutrients where it was buried and the thing that was going to break it gave it life. It broke free a root. That root grew and became a plant then grew into a sapling, then a tree, a swing for a child, a hideaway, a home, and finally a place to rest. Just like the tree, we are called to change. We are called to die to what we were and become something new.
Sometimes it is a small change like adding on a swing or getting a promotion, sometimes it weighs more: adding an entire fort or getting an entirely new job. And sometimes everything changes: like being cut down and forced into what someone else wants from you, maybe that was when you lost someone you loved or when someone you trusted betrayed you. Regardless, things change, and not always for the better.
So, what do we do when times change, big or small?
Shift Your Worldview
The first thing you must do when big things are falling apart is to find your foundation. You must find out what is true and what does not change. In more complex terms you need to find your worldview and make sure that it is based on truth. Some people may challenge that nothing is true, and they are mostly correct. There are a lot of things in this world that we say are true but upon closer examination, they are false or only somewhat true.
If someone were to say that they don’t lie, then that would be a lie. But if you look into their habits and see that they tell the truth 95% of the time it means that their statement was 95% true not 100% false. To be more serious with this example, I believe that people are good. Is that belief true? Well, if this is the first time you have asked this question, it may take some time to work out. Because you have to ask what good means. Does it mean that they do good, or that they are good? When you break this all down you create a foundation of things that are more true than not.
Build A Healthy Community
Second, you need to build a healthy community around you. Now we hear this word a lot but why do we need it? I think there are two main reasons we need community, for moments we are struggling and moments we are soaring, there are obvious reasons for some not being alone, but not everyone needs that. Some people don’t need a community for not being alone, they only need one person. Others feel completely alone even when surrounded by people. That is why I say only the two reasons.
Why do those two moments matter more than anything else? Well, the obvious one is when we are struggling. Many of us have experienced more pain in our lives than we knew was even possible. In moments like these having a community is more important than ever, these people can stand there with you in your pain and walk you through the journey. They don’t have to do anything special other than be there. They also can help when you feel like you can’t get back up, they stand beside you when no one else will or even knows.
My Great-Grandmother’s Funeral
One of my memories about this was the day of my great-grandmother’s funeral. We all loved her and had lots of laughs about some of the things she said and did. That day I was especially sad, not for the reason you would think though. I’ve worked for my church plenty of times when it comes to funerals, and I have seen more funerals than some people will in their entire lives. I wasn’t sad that she was gone. She was a great woman who lived a long and great life, and we believe there is a better place out there with god.
I was sad because my dad wasn’t there. This wasn’t a total surprise. He had left my family over a decade before; but for some reason in my heart, I felt like he would be there. I couldn’t cry in front of the people there for some reason, so I walked out to my car and just stood there in the parking lot, feeling the weight of the world crush me.
It felt like I was alone. I felt like I didn’t belong, that no one wanted me. I would never be accepted for who I was. As I was standing there in my car, I had two of my close friends who saw me leaving, walking up to me. I don’t remember what they said but I do remember not feeling alone. That’s all I needed.
I hope you have experienced that yourself. someone there to stand by you in the hardest moments in your life. I find that in one of the most defining moments in my life, I still struggle with some of those thoughts, but my friends help me fight it back.
Celebrating Your Wins
The other thing we need a healthy community for is in those moments where we have made it. Where we are living our best lives and it seems like good luck seems to just happen to you. We need to not be alone in those moments either. In those moments we need people to rejoice with or things can turn sower.
I’m concerned about that in my generation. I hear a lot about people opening up about their problems but not many opening up about what is going well in their lives. We can easily forget the good in our lives if we don’t share it.
There are so many competing voices in our heads, at least there are for me, that cause us to fight for every ounce of happiness that we have. That is why I say that we need community in times of plenty. Because without them we can lose sight of the miracles that are happening in our lives.
Not only that, but in the moments we are at our best we can stand strongest and help those who are at their worst.
So we need to work on our worldviews and create healthy communities, keyword there healthy. That alone takes a long time and a lot of effort and in the process, there will be hundreds of more steps, but they change for each person. we all are unique after all and we all need to go on this journey. The only question is how far will you make it?