Chapter Four: In Everything There is a Blessing

When times are difficult, and you think that the world is against you, that is the time you are least looking for someone to tell you everything will be OK. Yet it is those very times you need something to hold on to. Something to help you through the unbearable times.

It is natural and healthy to take time to mourn, grieve, or lament about your situation. It is yours and you are having difficulty getting through it. It is appropriate to give yourself permission to have these feelings. At some point you will want to make some sense of the situation in which you find yourself. It is natural to feel guilt, to want to lay blame somewhere, to seek retribution, even to flee. These very thoughts are a part of the “getting through it” process.

You begin by questioning yourself about what you could have done to prevent it. You might ask, “Why me?” You are asking yourself what was your responsibility in causing it to happen, an answer you might not prefer to hear.

However, it is this very process of “getting through it” that is part of the blessing. You are learning a lesson. You are testing yourself. If you don’t learn the lesson at this time it will come back. The lesson may not be that easy to discover.

To hear the words, “You have Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma” can be devastating to the patient and the family. At first, all you know is that it is cancer. You learn that it is treatable. There is no known cure at this time. You are given some treatment options. You learn of the side effects of the treatments. You select what seems to be the appropriate course of action, and then you begin the “getting through it” process.

When these words were spoken to my wife, it was distressing and demoralizing for us both. I can only guess how it has affected her. I do know that her positive attitude has strengthened through years of treatment, recurrence and remission. It was when we began this journey on our trip through life together that I began to look for the blessing in the situation. It occurred to me that our relationship was changing in a positive way. It is amazing what you will do to serve the one you love. I would never have knowingly selected this method for getting closer, but that was our viable option.

There are events occurring throughout the world that are horrendous. We should all look at them to discover what the blessing might be. We need to look at our place in the world and determine how our actions are perceived by others. Are our actions self-serving or do we act in ways that serve. People who perceive themselves to be held down by others will only take it for so long. A strong, self-serving leader will come along and “lead them to a better place”.

Whether the disaster comes from man or nature, it is still a disaster. Natural disasters require a plan to minimize the damage and bring about a speedy recovery. As for the man-made disasters, that is a different story. One of the first questions we might consider is, “Who is benefiting from this?” The publicly pronounced reasons may sound good, but are they the true reasons? But, we are looking for the blessings in these situations.

During a natural disaster, one blessing is the reality that friends, neighbors, relatives and strangers will come together to put things right again. I believe I have seen instances during man-made disasters where similar actions of friends, neighbors, relatives and strangers have also occurred.

As we attend to these disasters, we need to determine what blessing is likely to come from all of this. How can pain and death bring blessings? Perhaps the most important blessing is to determine how we can change our views of the world to be more serving, caring and sharing of our love. I now look for the blessings in everything that happens to me.

Jack’s Nugget: Serving others, caring about them and sharing the love in your heart is the greatest blessing you can bestow on others. I commend it to you.

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