This too shall pass
These are the words we continue to hear reverberating through every conversation and interaction in the midst a challenge.
I heard them the most when I had my heart surgery, and between the hospital visits and appointments I had started to square off with a situation that in my mind was going to change my life for the better while also changing it for the worse.
This wasn’t really the first time in my life that adversity had directly struck me. Struggles, self doubt, and other fears come and go. Whether what we’re up against is big or small we can begin to feel a little helpless. And even with what seems like test after test throughout our lives, I was facing this life changing moment for myself and still didn’t feel equipped to overcome it.
This too shall pass
As wholehearted the advice is, it sounds like a bad plan. The difficult thing that we’re suffering through will pass away, as difficult things have passed for others before us. I translate “this too shall pass” to a waiting game, to see if sadness would dissipate, protesting with picket signs that read stick it out and suffer.
We know patience is a virtue, but I think instead of being patient within challenge we can take intentional action with our thoughts. That it’s not always the situation that should pass or change, it’s us and our mindset.
This too shall pass with a purpose that lasts
I realized that maybe I didn’t understand the advice at first, or we just have to reframe it. Maybe it meant that with God, with a reimagined purpose that I was going to pass the adversity—leaving behind my old ways, my old mindset, my selfish identity and idols.
I started to understand that we could only build deeper faith by walking through hard times that push us a little closer into His presence and promise. Struggles aren’t produced by Him, but they do produce endurance for far greater purposes than we can conceptualize.
What I learned was that a crappy situation only passed if I made the decision to move forward with faith, if I invited God to work within me and within the situation, to clear my path while pushing me to take ownership of the direction I was walking.
Purpose can be created and realized through adversity. Pain and struggle is replaced with strength and inspiration. Hope is constructed from every difficult journey or heavy season. Our past situations don’t define our future, God does. Restored. Redeemed. Renewed.
A life built with purpose—This too shall last.
2 Corinthians 5:17 | Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.