# 18 Stronger

Life Lesson #18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.


My Mom used to say this to me, right in the middle of some terrible ordeal. She would give the lecture about how blessed I must have been seeing how God had all these tremendous trials fro me to go through. I remember the moment I thought this ideology was just a bunch of hogwash to make people feel okay about their chaotic and destructive lives and then gave people an excuse to just let the chaos continue because, after all, they were such a blessed and sacred people.

It was as if the irony of life was overwhelming me and I became bitter about the very thought of any trial being of value. This lesson only comes with age and the wisdom that time allows. You will never fully grasp the concept that “through all things I give thee experience”, until many things have passed through you.

There are some trials that will bring you to your very knees and those of us who have felt them know, in the end, they don’t kill you and in fact they do make you stronger. This inner core strength is what gives age it’s wisdom and what makes a parent wiser than their child. It falls to timing and placement and as long as you are older and mentally healthy you are in fact wiser and can serve as assistance to though just learning the ropes. Wisdom comes with age and with the knowledge that you have seen it before brings to light the saying that hindsight is in fact 20/20.

For teenagers who truly believe that there parents have no clue, comes the simple request to ask them; were their parents not teenagers at one time? Or as young parents, newly weds, all aspects of life, are those you hold so dear not traveling that path ahead of you? They don’t have all the answers but they do have the wisdom or at least the insight to possible solutions because time and experience has allowed that. They trod the path before you; they know it and can give you wisdom and insight to the difficult terrain. Here’s where parents get it wrong though. They believe their paths are the only path; their ways the only ways; their decisions the only right ones. The truth is, sometimes they aren’t and a wise parent will understand here, more than anywhere else, the plan of salvation and its purpose in ours and everyone else’s lives.

When our children make different choices; that is okay. When we make different choices than what our parents wanted for us, which too was okay. One path is not always the correct one. I may make divergent cross roads my path and yet, in the end, we all really do come to the same end point; we die. Here is the kicker, when we die, we don’t judge each other, God judges us and I am pretty sure his criteria is going to be a lot different than those people who feel the need to judge so critically here. Thanks goodness.

So the old adage is true, that which doesn’t kill us does in fact make us stronger. Life is so good and without the bumps and bruises it simply wouldn’t be as much fun. Garnish the insight from you parents and others to make the journey easier but recognize always that the journey itself will always be yours to take. Enjoy!