3 Powerful Lessons from Suffering
Michele Cushatt is a lady I admire from afar. I have known of her name for a few years, due to her interaction with Michael Hyatt. Some time ago, she became the co-host of Michael’s weekly podcast on leadership, “This is Your Life.”
On this week’s episode of the program, Michele tells her own story of triumph. You see, she was not on the program for quite a long time, because she was battling cancer. I do not want to give away too much of her story, but her cancer surgery caused her to lose–and have to have reconstructed–about two-thirds of her tongue. (And keep in mind, part of her work is as a paid public speaker.)
On the other side of her surgery and treatments, she speaks openly about what she has been through. And on this week’s podcast, Michele ended the show by sharing three thoughts. When I heard them, I knew I wanted to share them with you on this blog.
We all suffer in various ways, and perspective is key to how we face any struggles we might go through. To help us, here are the three thoughts from Michele that I found powerful.
- Suffering is inevitable. If you think you will get through this life with no suffering, you are fooling yourself. While we do not need to sit around and wait for bad things to happen, we need to realize that something is going to happen at some point. That helps us when the “why” question starts to rear its ugly head. Sometimes the “why” is simply because people suffer.
- The lessons are invaluable. If we go through suffering without learning lessons, we are even worse off! We learn lessons about ourselves, about the faithfulness of God, about true friendship, about priorities, and more. Hearing or reading from people who have been through suffering and have learned from it is a powerful tool.
- The rewards are incomprehensible. Suffering sometimes can even lead to the end of our life, but the rewards we gain from suffering can be absolutely amazing. For faithful Christians, even if our life ends, we gain the greatest reward possible. But should our suffering not lead to death, there are still rewards that we might have never considered before the storms of life overcame us.
I have not gone through protracted periods of major suffering in my life, but I have been knocked down a number of times. For those seasons, I am thankful, because God and true friends have seen me through. Maybe you are suffering as you read these words. I pray Michele’s reminders help you and give you strength as you face each day.
LINKS
This is Your Life [Podcast with Michael Hyatt]
“The Transformative Power of Suffering” [The program I used for the inspiration behind this post]
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AUTHOR: Adam Faughn
Photo background credit: William Wootton on Creative Commons
