If life has knocked you down, I am not speaking to you from some comfortable place where nothing ever went wrong.
I know something about the hard road.
And I discovered something there:
THE ROAD THAT HURTS YOU CAN ALSO TEACH YOU.
IF YOU ARE DOWN, HURTING, HOPELESS OR TIRED — I KNOW YOU
You see, I have traveled the hard road.
And I am better for having traveled it.
I didn’t choose that road. In many ways, it chose me.
Perhaps the easier road knew its message wouldn’t get through to me. So instead of life giving up on me, another road appeared—the one where lessons are expensive, mistakes hurt and understanding sometimes comes AFTER the suffering.
Put resentment, despair, complaining and giving up aside for a moment.
There may be gold buried in what you are going through.
HOW I MADE IT THIS FAR…I DO NOT KNOW
I marvel at some of the circumstances I found myself in from my youth onward.
Some were real messes.
Some were born from ignorance.
Some from misdirection.
Some because I simply didn’t know any better.
I had little guidance or direction growing up, so much of life had to be learned as I went along.
Looking back, I see something I didn’t always recognize while going through it:
GRACE.
Somehow a door opened.
Someone appeared.
Something changed.
I learned.
I survived.
And I kept going.
BEING POOR OR IGNORANT IS OKAY UNTIL YOU KNOW ABOUT IT
I remember having holes in my shoes growing up.
As a child, you may think very little about something like that until another child notices and says:
“Hey…you’ve got a hole in your shoe.”
Suddenly you become conscious of something you hadn’t been thinking about.
You realize the hole didn’t arrive yesterday.
It took time to get there.
Then another realization arrives:
Maybe we’re poor.
That’s a heavy discovery for a child.
But experiences like that also teach you something about other people.
Years later, when you see somebody struggling, you don’t have to imagine everything they’re feeling.
Sometimes you’ve worn those shoes.
Literally.
GROWING UP TOO FAST
Then adulthood arrives and the lessons become more expensive.
You enter society.
You want things.
You need things.
You become ambitious.
You discover responsibility.
Then marriage came early for me and accelerated the lessons.
Now my choices weren’t only about ME.
Someone else was depending upon them.
Add children and everything changes again.
A HUMAN MULE…A WORK HORSE
A man who loves his family will sometimes turn himself into a human mule.
Work.
Then work some more.
When you don’t know how to work smarter, you compensate by working harder.
You pull the load because people you love are riding on the wagon.
Eventually I learned something I repeat often:
NO ONE GETS WHERE THEY ARE WITHOUT THE HELP OF SOMEONE ELSE.
Nobody.
Look closely enough at any successful life and somewhere you will find helping hands.
A parent.
A spouse.
A friend.
A teacher.
A stranger.
An employer.
A mentor.
Or perhaps someone who simply believed in you during the five minutes when you didn’t believe in yourself.
Never forget those people.
MY LIFE UNFOLDS AS I GO
I have never traveled this way before.
Neither have you.
Every morning brings territory we have never actually occupied.
Tomorrow?
Never been there.
Next year?
Never seen it.
So I am like everybody else—figuring some of this out as I go.
That realization gives us permission to be a little more compassionate with one another.
We’re all traveling for the first time.
TOOK A LICK-IN…BUT KEPT ON TICK-IN
I have traveled the bumpy road.
I have lived through uncomfortable times.
I have learned things the hard way.
And somewhere along that road I discovered something much more valuable than getting everything I wanted:
GRATITUDE WITHOUT CONDITIONS.
That took some learning.
If my gratitude depends entirely upon everything going my way, then circumstances own my gratitude.
Good day?
Thank you, God.
Bad day?
Where are you, God?
Eventually I began learning another way.
Thank you for LIFE itself.
Even while I am working through the rest of it.
WHEN YOU ARE DOWN
This is where I want to speak directly to the person who is hurting.
If you are tired…
I know you.
If you’re wondering how much longer you can keep carrying the load…
I know something about you.
If everybody else appears to be moving forward while you’re trying to get your feet underneath you…
I know that road.
But don’t mistake a difficult chapter for the conclusion of your story.
You don’t know what this experience is preparing you to understand.
You don’t know whom you may someday help because you survived it.
You don’t know what strength is being developed inside you right now.
And you certainly don’t know what tomorrow is carrying toward you.
THE PRICE FOR HAVING LIFE
Here is one of the greatest lessons the hard road taught me:
The price for having life…
IS TO LIVE IT.
Not merely when everything is comfortable.
Not merely when the bank account is full.
Not merely when everybody loves us.
Not merely when our plans work.
LIVE IT while repairing.
LIVE IT while learning.
LIVE IT while rebuilding.
LIVE IT while grieving.
LIVE IT while wondering.
LIVE IT while beginning again.
The hard road is still a road.
Keep traveling.
FINAL THOUGHT
If you are down today, don’t demand that you climb the entire mountain before sunset.
Get through today.
Sometimes that’s enough.
Then get up tomorrow and take another piece of your life back.
You may someday look behind you and discover something extraordinary:
The person who walked into that difficult season…
is not the same person who walked out.
There was gold in that hard road after all.
You just couldn’t see it while you were digging.
Travel well.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
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