Build on Life’s Challenges

In 2019 I wrote a blog entitled “Something I Would Tell My Younger Self: Prioritize the “S” Word in Your Marriage. Since that blog I have thought of other things I wish I would have known in my ‘younger seasons’.

Every season in life has it’s good times and it’s not so good times. I love remembering those sweet moments when my little boy smothered me with kisses and my little girl watched me adoringly as I put on my makeup. Those moments that seemed so trivial at the time but mean the world to me now. RECORDING THOSE MOMENTS has gotten so much easier with our cell phones and Social Media. The challenge still remains to make them significant. It seemed like I was always too busy just living life, not realizing life was rushing past me very quickly! Enjoy them in the “now” season.

Times of difficulty and challenge should be remembered too.

Don’t look at the challenges you face in life as being put there just to make your life miserable. They have a purpose that is hard to see when you are in the middle of them. Those times are when I learned the most and changed the most. As I remember them now, I realize they made me a better person. If it was a challenge because of a mistake I made, I tried to learn from that mistake and allowed it to be a stone I built on. My husband and I realize now that the challenges we faced in our marriage and as we raised our children improved us as we faced them and learned from them. They made us stronger, not weaker. Even those hardships in life such as illness and unexpected loss that seemed so difficult, set our life on a completely different coarse and turned out to be used for good. They developed positive things in our life that we wouldn’t trade for anything.

So, younger self, as you walk through life, remember the good AND the not so good. Build your life so it just gets better because you learn to embrace every season and learn from every mistake and disappointment and challenge and blessing. They make you stronger and better.

This verse in the Bible kept me focused on the bigger picture in every season of life; “FOR WE KNOW THAT GOD CAUSES EVERYTHING TO WORK TOGETHER FOR THE GOOD OF THOSE WHO LOVE GOD AND ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE FOR THEM.” Romans 8:28

My favorite books are those written about amazing people who have faced unbelievable challenges in life that have made them stronger and better.

Here are some links to books that have been an inspiration to me:

• Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose
• The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilderson
• Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic
• Through the Eyes of a Lion: Facing Incredible Pain, Finding Incredible Power by Steven Furtick