There is nothing more beneficial than a few hard knocks in life. It softens one’s approach to others and gives you a better idea of what other people are going through.

As I read my email last night, I was also thinking about the hard trial I am currently going through. Call it revelation or realization, but it occurred to me that my worry and depression may be unnecessary. There is a way to combat despair. I need to get a better grasp of God’s love for me.

“I didn’t ask for that truck to crash into my car,” the man said to me as he looked at pictures of the house he used to own. He built and operated three radio stations at one time. He was a pilot with intelligence in the genius range. Now he had brain damage, had been swindled out of his radio businesses, was in a wheelchair on disability and unable to adequately provide for his family.

“Uh, could you clean this up?” The pudgy man looked down at me, waving his fingers in a brush-away motion. “The amateur bowling league is next and we will be sitting at this table,” he stated as he walked off. “I’m supposed to be impressed with an amateur?” I thought to myself. “I’m supposed to clean the area and move from my seat for the amateur?” I began to fume. “Who does he think he is?” I quietly mused as my irritation rose in response to his belittling manner.

My baby brother has always enjoyed scuba diving. On one of his trips, he and the crew encountered a whale swimming right next to their boat. Joey, my brother’s friend, wanted to touch the skin of their marine visitor. He jumped in the water to place his hand on the side of the great mammal. Suddenly, he was faced with whale as far as he could see to the right, to the left, above and below him. He was overwhelmed by the size of the beast to the point of confusion. It then occurred to him that very soon the whale’s tail would be upon him and he could be seriously hurt.

“Auntie, where is it?” Anna rose from her feet. “I will kill it for you!” It was an equatorial hot November evening in the year 2008, Uganda, East Africa. I looked up in surprise at this ten year old slight of a girl, determined to conquer my fear for me. I had been re-counting my story of walking alone to their group of thatched roofed houses in the dark. As I walked down the wide path, flashlight illuminating the red clay for my feet to trace, there, to the side of the trail was something black; something coiled.

Arriving home late one evening, I saw the answering machine flashing with a message for me. Clicking on the machine, my easygoing mood suddenly grew serious as I heard my doctor asking me to call him the next day about my test results. It had been a few weeks since I had seen the doctor, and my mind reviewed the appointment. I remembered I had a mammogram. I knew the doctors only called with bad news. The night was a long one.

In his first few grades of grammar school, my son earned a reputation as a troublemaker. In the years that followed, though he had grown and matured, the reputation never left him. No matter what either of us tried to do, it was not forgotten by his peers or the school administration. With the slightest infraction, he was once again reminded of his past and disciplined as if all of his previous misdeeds had recently been committed. My boy started the sixth grade hopeless. He slept in the car on the way to school, trying to escape his destination. I had asked and had been granted the teacher of my choice for my son, but I too was worried that we would not be able to rise above previous transgressions.