“If I’m lucky enough, I will get through hard things
And they will make me gentle to the ways of the world” – Zach Bryan, Lucky Enough, lines 15-16

I’ve taken to poetry lately. Who knows why really as I often don’t understand the meaning intended in the depth and creativity of the author’s mind. But gosh, these simple lines in Zach Bryan’s opening track on his new album struck my soul. “Gentle to the ways of the world.” What a beautiful way to look at hard things.

Life can be full of struggle. We struggle to make ends meet. We struggle to get along with those we disagree with and even those we love. We struggle to make the grade. We struggle to keep the weight off or to take it off at all. We struggle to find the time, the time for anything important. We struggle with depression, or anxiety, or trauma. We struggle when our kids struggle. We struggle to accept loss in our life. And on top of that, we struggle with bags under our eyes that likely come from sleepless nights thinking about the struggle. Sometimes we run the risk of growing bitter because of the struggles we experience. Sometimes hard things pile on top of other hard things until life just feels plain hard.

2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

I recall a conversation with my pastor some years ago when I miscarried a baby before I had our Grady. I was fixated on what it meant for my life, for our decision to grow our family. I was quick to jump to a meaning just about our family, that we were simply not meant to have another baby. But my pastor said something that stuck with me. It was something along the lines of, and I paraphrase, what if losing this baby really is about something bigger? What if it isn’t about whether you should or shouldn’t grow your family, but what if it’s about allowing you to understand others’ loss in a deeper way? Your sphere is bigger than you think.

What if we looked at struggle differently? What if our struggle wasn’t always about us? Sure, we endure it personally, but what if its purpose was for something else, for someone else? Would we look at hard things differently then? Maybe almost as a training, a purpose, even a blessing? Gosh, that shifts the paradigm, doesn’t it? Suddenly it seems as if God has chosen us for something. Sure, something hard, but He’s chosen us specifically. That is pretty cool.

When we lost Tim, my heart grew bigger, mushier, more open to sharing the pain with others. When I hear about others who have lost loved ones, my heart simply leaps out of my chest and runs to them wanting to do something, anything to help. Because I’ve been there, done that, am doing that now.

Today I pray that we struggle. That we struggle well and cling to God in the struggle. That it softens us instead of the opposite. That we recognize that while we wouldn’t have raised our hands hoping to be chosen for the struggle, but that we embrace it as something bigger than just us. That we look outside ourselves and see the same struggle in others and that we run to them to share the burden.

That it makes us gentle to the ways of this world.