Most of us don’t like the connotation of the word, ‘struggle.’ It evokes thoughts of difficulty. We don’t like difficulties.
We don’t like bumpy roads that cause us to lose equilibrium.We don’t like to climb mountains that exhaust our strength. We don’t want to swim a channel that seems much too wide for our meager swimming abilities.
Except struggle increases our balance, our muscle, our talents.
Struggle is fire that hardens the clay of our lives, turning an ordinary earthen vessel into something altogether extraordinary.
As parents, we don’t like to see our children struggle. We want to relieve them of difficulty. We like to ‘fix’ them. We want to save them from anything that hurts–even if they’ve concoted their own unsavory situation.
We should let them know we are there for them. But I think there are times when we shouldn’t be too quick to ‘save’ them. We should allow them to ‘save’ themselves, to strengthen their wings from within. Struggle can produce people who are out of the ordinary, simply because they have had to work hard.
The moth in a cocoon struggles to get out of it, and by doing so, it grows stronger—strong enough to fly completely away from the cocoon that once tied and bound it, as a beautiful butterfly.
Isn’t this what God does for us, too? When we think He’s forgotten us, turned His back on us, deaf to our cries and prayers, in His infinite wisdom, He knows that our struggles may be exactly what saves us, too.
What if your blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healings come through tears?
What if all your trials in life are mercies in disguise?
Translating a World on the Edge 