Hard Times

Marines have a motto: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Or maybe you’ve heard the slogan, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” These slogans sound good. We should face our struggles with faith and just get on with our lives, right?

The very real truth is that life’s trials hurt, and it is not often easy to “just get on with things.” The human experience is full of hardships: sickness and accidents; disappointments, strained and broken relationships. Difficulties in life will come and we must not allow them to keep us down.

A clear understanding of the value of these hardships will make it possible makes it possible to have a positive attitude in the face of struggle. Here are some points for you to consider as you face the troubles that you are either dealing with now or are sure to face in the future: 1) Adversity can both mature us and can bring out the best in us; 2) Suffering and distress can produce perseverance and endurance.

Perseverance is not a passive acceptance of circumstances. Perseverance instead refers to the ability to display steadfastness and constancy in the face of the most formidable difficulty. It is a courageous resolve in the face of suffering. It is continuing on even when times are tough, no matter the circumstances. Hard times can have a purifying quality; they are the arena in which, and the process through which, a tribulation transforms into a blessing.

But to truly learn and grow, we must persevere. Too often, we want to get our difficulties over with quickly. There are times when the best course is to bear up patiently instead of grumbling and complaining. We need to simply endure, and to continue doing well, understanding that perhaps the trial is meant to refine something in our life.

A journalist once wrote, “When nothing seems to help, I go to look at a stonecutter, hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times, without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet after the one hundred and first blow, it will split in two; and I know that it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Letting patience do its perfect work is not easy. If we wish to run the race of life well we need to develop patience. That patience, in turn, will come only through a form of “resistance training,” that consists of doing well in enduring the misfortunes of life.

Our goal should be to turn trials into triumph. Remember that patient endurance of adversity can accomplish much good and spirituality can be a powerful tool in developing the wisdom to help us gain a proper perspective toward our hardships.

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