Adversity doesn’t typically ask permission before it plunges you into the depths of despair. It just happens and down you go, sometimes before you’ve fully comprehended what even hit you. But it’s your response to adversity that determines how long you stay there. Or at least what your stay is like.
One day, my seven-year-old nephew purposely missed the bus. My mom told him that back in the day, kids who misbehaved had to write one hundred times that it wouldn’t happen again, which discussion led to implementing that very consequence for him. One hundred times, “I will not miss the bus.”
He tacked a disclaimer on his first sentence. “I will not miss the bus…but I’m not making any promises.”
Funny? Or naughty? Maybe a little of both? Half of you bites back a smile while the other half raises a stern eyebrow. Amusing, but perhaps not something to be gotten away with.
Do I have any room to talk, though? I do the same thing with God. “Sorry I threw a tantrum about all your plans I don’t get, but I can’t promise I won’t do it again.”
Like another day of school will inevitably come for my nephew, bring out all his aversion to the prospect, and tempt him once again to revolt, so will come the unavoidable reminders of what my life is missing. Couples holding hands and babies in mothers’ arms that bring a painful wondering. What would that be like? Heavenly Father, why do I still not know what that’s like?
But does my reaction have to be as inescapable as what triggers it? Perhaps I can’t choose what comes my way, but there’s more I can do about it when it arrives than I’d sometimes like to think.
Human Nature’s Response to Adversity
Like to think?
Yes, I phrased that right. Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be a dangerous sense of satisfaction in wallowing. The “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms” mentality. It’s simultaneously miserable and erroneously enriching to believe you got the short end of the stick. (I speak from experience.)
Maybe it’s because it removes all responsibility for your attitude from your shoulders. There you were minding your own business, and for no good reason, God decided to pick on you. I’ve told him a few times over the years, “If you don’t want me to feel this way–like you don’t love me, like you’ve abandoned me, like you have no use for me, and my life has no purpose–prove me wrong.” If he doesn’t, it’s his fault I’m a basket case. I don’t need to change. He does.
Wallowers play excellent victims.
But here’s how my little drama plays out every time. God doesn’t prove anything. He just lets me finish whining, like a parent who puts their screaming two-year-old outside and tells them they can come in when they’re done. And when I’m ready to come out of the mire–like most two-year-olds, I tire of crying eventually–he pulls me up and shows me that everything I wanted him to prove, I already knew. He does love me, hasn’t forgotten me, and if I can’t see his use for me yet, there’s at least faith that he has one.
This is the part where I apologize.
And tell him I’ll probably wallow in that mire again someday.
That’s just how it goes.
But it doesn’t have to.
Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don’t have to sit on it.
Joyce Meyer
The Difference Between Reaction and Response
Most of the time, we don’t mean to sit on the cactus initially. Happy to—bask?—in the prickles once we’re on it, maybe, but sometimes adversity causes the first unfortunate seat-drop before we can stop it.
Could we stop it, though? At the very least, break our fall on something more comfortable?
As a teacher, I learned one of the surest ways to handle things wrong is to be caught unprepared. I should have asked and should still ask myself more often what I’d sometimes ask a student after discussing their misbehavior. “What will you do next time this comes up?”
“Probably do it again,” is not a viable solution.
Yet…say hello to my nephew’s and my game plan. Resigned to react instead of considering how to respond.
Reaction is instant. Impulsive and driven by emotion. Response is methodical and aware.
There’s not much room to discover methodical and aware in the heat of the moment. All you know is a stubborn child has pushed one button too many, that you DO NOT want to go to school, or that you’re suddenly struggling to breathe around the invisible knife in your heart, and you react however those emotions dictate. Lose your temper, ditch school, slide into depression.
But what if you’d discovered methodical and aware before any of that happened?
It would be closer at hand when it did.
I’m losing my temper—what did I say I would do when this happened? Bite my tongue and count to ten.
I don’t want to go to school—what’s the plan? Get on the bus anyway.
My heart hurts—what’s my response to this ache? Don’t believe the lies I tell myself about how little I’m worth.
None of that is easy. There’s still a bit of battle to be fought, and you might still come out wounded. But it is to be hoped, at least, that instead of fanning the flame, you’ve helped contain it.
The Ultimate Response to Adversity
Controlling the fires of adversity does not mean ignoring them. Whatever happens, or doesn’t happen, to send you into that fight is real. So are the hurts that come with it, and they should be acknowledged. They need to be acknowledged. While it’s not healthy to stew in them, it’s no better to stuff them in a dark corner unresolved.
But the same piece of wisdom applies here that seems to cover every facet of this complicated life: find the balance. Feel the anger, the grief, the dislike, or whatever sends you to whatever your edge is. But don’t linger longer than necessary. Get off the cactus and see what you can do with it. More importantly, watch what God does with it.
Watch what he does with you.
How do you get off the cactus? Or avoid it altogether?
The first step for me is to want to. Easier said than done, but anyone convinced against their will is of the same opinion still. A decision has to be made.
The next step is probably as individual as we are, as unique as our circumstances, an answer everyone has to find for themselves. It may be as simple as choosing to get on the bus. It may involve much more.
But here’s a place everyone can start:
When adversity is raining a storm and things are constantly going wrong, ask yourself, “How would my best self show up?”
Niro Thambipillay
Adversity has a way of bringing out our worst selves, and our worst selves like to invite more troubles to the party than we already have. But adversity also has incredible potential to make us better people than we’ve ever been before.
Even if you don’t go in as your best self–I’m not sure I ever have–at least seek to come out a better self.
I hope I have.
What adversities have led you to discover your best self? Leave a comment and share this post with anyone you know who might be blessed by it.
Pin It For Later
Fun topic. I mean that.
Some folks call them ‘problems’, but I’ve been striving for years to change the words I use, taking ‘problems’ and transform it into ‘challenges’. A positive twist that takes “oh, this is gonna hurt,” and flips it into “I dare you to overcome this!”
Sounds like you have most of this figured out, Heather, and this is no easy topic — especially when it’s human nature to back away from adversity, instead of meeting it head on. Some people run towards the screams and gunfire, while others run and hide and try to survive/cope. Some people show up and do their duty at a funeral, and then there’s people like me, who just can’t seem to cope. It took seeing the tiny coffin of my best friends son, only 8 years old, to show up at funerals since–all I could see was my son Evan (8 at the time) in that child’s place.
My heart wouldn’t let me leave my friends side. I learned how hard funerals were, and what it meant to mourn with those I love.
Adversity is an everyday occurrence. Opposition in all things? But what caught my eye, was when you said:
“But the same piece of wisdom applies here that seems to cover every facet of this complicated life: find the balance. Feel the anger, the grief, the dislike, or whatever sends you to whatever your edge is. But don’t linger longer than necessary. Get off the cactus and see what you can do with it. More importantly, watch what God does with it.”
I’m not sure I believe there’s any balance with adversity. What I do believe, is that your description is more likely a stage of our progression, not the final state we should strive to obtain. Honestly, Heather, I would have agreed 100% just three months ago, if it wasn’t for being blessed with so much pain. In many ways, I’ve been compelled to reach out and seek for my own answers.
Line by line I feel I’m gaining a deeper understanding of God, of His love, of His mercy, and a growing confidence in the Plan of Happiness and the Justice of God. Many things that once sparked anger in me, no longer do. I’ve asked God to help me develop this further, to let go of anger, stress, worry, and to replace it with love, love, love –and more love.
It’s working.
Kathi laughed at me two nights ago when she shared that the van door was left open all day. It’s a bad habit my family has, leaving the doors open or lights on in the minivan. I’m left to jump start the van or fix it, usually when I am the one trying to rush to go somewhere important.
I responded with, “Okay. I’ll see if it needs to be jumped in the morning. Don’t worry about it.”
Kathi was stunned. “Are you an alien? What have you done with my husband?” Apparently I never react well about that–but all I felt was peace and love. It wasn’t an issue.
Everything I did today was out of my normal box. I even confronted a young man in his truck, in the middle of the road, got him to comply to my reasonable wishes, and all with a smile and calm heart.
Impossible, I’d say, three months ago. Yet here I am, so far.
Adversities (or challenges) are only opportunities to learn better control of ourselves. When they are repeated, that would seem to me, to be an opportunity to refine my actions.
My goal? Never to let that anger into my heart in the first place — because I know my Savior, my God, my value, and my place. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it, and each step closer transforms my life, my relationships, and the blessings I experience.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
God Bless.
You’re right. I think ultimately we’re all striving for what this quote says: “Be so confident in God’s plan that you don’t even get upset anymore when things don’t go your way.” I do speak to the process because I’m in it, but the more we practice that control in a challenge, the easier it becomes to not lose control at all. That said, though we attain a level of complete trust, there are some adversities that cut so deep, you’re not human if they don’t hurt or make you a little angry. Even Jesus felt abandoned on the cross. The stronger our faith, the easier it might be to endure and overcome, but as long as we’re in mortal bodies, we’re going to feel mortal emotion. And fight all the reactions it triggers. So yes, we aspire to not having to find a balance because we’re already in one, and on many levels we may succeed. But the reality of a mortal journey is that finding that balance is a lifelong endeavor. The important thing is that we never give up the effort.
Agreed.