Despair and Hope are Inseparable

Despair and hope are inseparable. One can never understand what hope is really about unless one wrestles with despair. The same is true with faith. There has to be some serious doubt, otherwise faith becomes merely a dogmatic formula, an orthodoxy, a way of evading the complexity of life, rather than a way of engaging honestly with life.  --Cornel West, 1953 -

So one of the things that I realized early on in my process of the last two years was just how easy of a life I have had up to that point.  Really, I hadn't really gone through anything really hard.  And anything I had gone through, I had mostly pushed it under the rug (oh that good old denial is a powerful thing). 

I think I have a gift in sharing my message in the Unitarian Pulpit.  I have considered turning this into a second career at some point (a distant point, don't worry).  But I had often cringed when ministers would talk about how hard life is.  I was kind of a "get over it" kind of girl.  Okay, I get it now.  And, if the time ever comes, I think that these times, these challenges and what I learned about how to overcome them, I will be a better minister (in the general sense or the professional sense). 

How can you understand what happiness is--or contentedness is (which I've come to the conclusion is the opposite of sadness) without exploring the other side?  How can you know what peace is if you haven't had chaos?  How can you recognize loyalty if your relationships have never been tested?  And how can you know faith if you have never just thrown up your hands and hoped that someone took over?

Yes, there is divine purpose for our struggles.  For when we are not struggling, we can truly understand how far we've come and how great we can become.