Coming Out Better on the Other Side

The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that, you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face… The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.  --Eleanor Roosevelt


I just had a friend give me a piece of advice a couple of weeks ago:  If you want to feel better, listen to someone who has a story that is worse than yours.  Well, the last few weeks ago, I've heard a lot of stories worse than mine; some of the stories belong to people very close to me and they break my heart.  And I've decided that I'm not very fond of my friend's advice.  No, I don't feel better--I feel worse for them and my problems are still there as well. 

The interesting thing is that I'm mildly excited for my loved ones for having to go through these rough times as well.  Not in a sadistic way, but in the way that Eleanor Roosevelt describes.  Because, in my opinion, anyone who is worth their weight in salt will take a bad situation, live through it and come out the other side having learned something and use it to make their life better.   And while we're getting through the hard stuff, I can be there and see how awful it is.  But I can also look forward and see what growth and freedom that will come for these beautiful people for walking through the "tortures of the damned."  I'm confident that will be true for me and I'm even more confident that it will be true for them as well.