Hard Things

The past two months have been a difficult stretch. I was just feeling back to normal after my April chemo session, when I started to come down with a cold. It turned into a rotten thing that put me out of commission for a week, shut down our planned Easter celebration, and left me dragging for another few weeks. Before I really got on top of that, I had a shingles outbreak that was really painful, and at the same time I started to have severe neck pain that wouldn’t quit and that made getting through work days a test of endurance. The oncologist sent me for an x-Ray and an MRI. (He wanted to rule out any metastatic disease). No cancer in my neck … but there is a list of things wrong with it – bone spurs, flattened discs, bulging discs etc.

I really work at trying to keep myself in shape, strong, and mobile as possible, but this made me feel like giving up. The problem is, if you let yourself sink into a pit – physically and / or emotionally – it will just be that much harder to climb out and get back on track, and you WILL have to climb out eventually. So it’s best to avoid going there in the first place.

I decided instead to find some exercises I could do to strengthen the erector muscles in my neck, along with some traction I could do at home, and it has helped! Way less pain, I’m feeling more functional again, and I’m thankful for that!

Then just this week, I experienced a disappointment that has hit me way harder than I imagined it would. No one has wronged me in any way. There has been no injustice. I simply didn’t get the promotion I allowed myself to hope for. The news was delivered with kindness and lots of affirmation. But they picked someone else. I said I wanted God’s will – whatever that was. So I have to trust Him with this outcome. But dang, I feel devalued, dumb, less-than, worth less than if I had never ventured in the first place. So now I have an opportunity to not simply get through this, but to grow through it. Maybe all the physical challenges of the past months have worn me down and made me more fragile than I was. I like to think of myself as resilient more than fragile – and resilience is an essential quality to develop as we move through life’s challenges. But I think all of us are fragile in ways we don’t even realize, until the pressure of some event or circumstance reveals the fault lines. But as in most trials, there is opportunity in it.

There is the opportunity of honest self-assessment and humility – and with that comes God’s grace. There is the opportunity to remember, or learn in an even deeper way, that my eternal worth is not derived from a particular role I play or position I fill, but from my identity as God’s child and that relationship I have with Him. Hebrews chapter 2 tells us that because Jesus shared in our humanity, “He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.” If He is not ashamed of me, then I don’t need to be ashamed of myself. And one other thing:

We Christians love to talk about the ‘privilege’ of serving others – until we actually have to do it, until we are actually treated like servants! It’s easy enough to be gracious when we find ourselves in a position of power or authority, and to embrace ‘servant leadership,’ (or at least to throw around the phrase). But what about serving willingly, joyfully, when we are actually in the servant role, playing second fiddle instead of running the show? So, I have yet another opportunity to actually do what Jesus said, and honestly, this is something to look forward to.

In the intensely practical New Testament letter of James, the author tells us to consider it all joy when we encounter trials of various kinds, precisely because of the opportunities those hardships present. At 63 years old, I still have room – and opportunity – to grow. I think I’ll take that as a gift and run with it, even if I sometimes groan in the process.