You’ll Get Through This

“What wisdom would you like to share?” is the most important question I ask each of the overcomers I interview. I want to, and I believe others want to, know what each woman has learned as she journeyed through her struggle.

Max Lucado gives his advice about facing life’s tough challenges and the wisdom learned from them in his book You’ll Get Through This.

He shares the various challenges Joseph faced: thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, entrapped by a conniving woman, and thrown into prison. Just a few easy challenges, right?

Lucado explains the wisdom Joseph gained from each challenge he faced. We can gain wisdom too from the challenges life throws at us. Lucado tells us how.

If you’re facing a challenge – big or small – YOU NEED THIS BOOK!

You’ll Get Through This

Joseph had numerous reasons to give up. But he didn’t. Lucado says, “His life offers this lesson: in God’s hands, intended evil becomes ultimate good.”

The mantra Lucado uses throughout the book is this:

These nine lines of wisdom can be applied to all types of struggles: unexpected or long term health conditions, addictions, grief, abuse, tragedies, anxiety, job loss, divorce, mental health struggles, PTSD, poverty . . .

I love that he says – with God’s help – you’ll get through this. When we go about fighting life’s tough challenges on our own (without God), we are definitely facing a battle without the right weapons.

When we face battles with God’s help, we know: “ If God is for us, who can be against us? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ” Romans 8:31b, 37

What Can I Learn

Lucado says, “Rather than ask God WHY, ask God WHAT. What can I learn from this experience? Rather than ask God to change your circumstances, ask him to use your circumstances to change you.”

That statement is counter intuitive to our natural inclinations. We want the pain/discomfort/sadness to be taken away. We don’t want to so easily accept it as an opportunity to learn. Because we know it will hurt. Or last longer than we think we can endure. Or force us to change our habits.

To use a teacher analogy (my paying job!), a test is an opportunity to demonstrate what you’ve learned. Have you learned to trust God when you don’t see answered prayer? Do you seek Him first when you receive bad news? If you don’t “hear” from Him, do you still believe He’s working? (Remember: the teacher is always quiet during a test.) Even though you don’t like the material being learned, do you have faith in the teacher that the material will help you grow stronger intellectually, physically, and spiritually?

Notice the lessons learned: trust God, seek Him, believe He’s working, have faith in the teacher.

Be a Sponge

A close friend of mine recently learned she has triple negative breast cancer. Because she knows of all my research into overcoming life’s tough challenges, she asked if we could talk. “What do I need to be doing? she asked.

Having a spunky, fireball personality with a strong faith in God are two of the things she’s already doing. But I told her, “You need God right now, more than ever. Find inspirational songs to listen to and sing them loudly. Read books about facing challenges. Talk/scream/cry out to God. Find verses that strengthen you and say them out loud often.”

I like Lucado’s version too: “Make God’s presence your passion. How? Be more sponge and less rock. Place a rock in the ocean, and what happens? Its surface gets wet. The exterior may change color, but the interior remains untouched. Yet place a sponge in the ocean, and notice the change. It absorbs the water. The ocean penetrates ever pore and alters the essence of the sponge.”

“God surrounds us in the same way the Pacific surrounds an ocean floor pebble. He is everywhere – above, below, on all sides. We choose our response – rock or sponge? Resist or receive? Everything within you says harden the heart. Run from God; resist God; blame God. But be careful. Hard hearts never heal. Spongy ones do. Open every pore of your soul to God’s presence.”

An Overcomer

I believe my friend has a tough journey ahead of her. Will she choose rock or sponge? Not doubt about it – she’s already chosen the sponge by asking what does she need to do. She is ready to fight. She knows the weapons she’ll need. Her positive attitude will carry her through on the rough days. Her support network is as large as a powerful army. She’ll get through this – with God’s help.

I believe you’ll be reading her story on my web site in the future, because she is an OVERCOMER!

Leave a reply (below): In the last chapter of this book, Lucado says, “Life turns every person upside down. No one escapes unscathed. We’d be foolish to think we are invulnerable. But we’d be just as foolish to think evil wins the day. The Bible vibrates with the steady drumbeat of faith: God recycles evil into righteousness.”

Replace evil in the last sentence of his quote with: unexpected or long term health conditions, addictions, grief, abuse, tragedies, anxiety, job loss, divorce, mental health struggles, PTSD, poverty, etc.

Do you agree or disagree with the quote when you replace evil with those words? Explain your thoughts.