If you write it …

Brokenness to Beauty: Transforming Your Brokenness into a Beautiful Life

Everyone needs encouragement. We all go through difficulties in life and look to those who can give us a word of wisdom, an understanding ear, a word to carry us through the dark times.  And sometimes we need more than a word. We need someone to come alongside us with compassionate assistance.

Encouragement comes in various forms. I believe there is benefit in sharing what one has learned about walking through the good and bad times, about living a life worth living regardless of what comes our way, passing down truth from one generation to another, one friend to another. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a Christian, and Christians have an obligation to serve one another in love and pass on to the next generation and others around us the lessons God has taught us.

I found as I blogged my journey through cancer treatment, the readers were encouraged by how I went through it. Since every person will go through some form of suffering, difficulty or tragedy in the course of life, either personally or through someone they are close to (a simple reality, folks), it is important to learn how to go through these times in such a way as to come out the other side not only intact, but better for the journey; in essence, to turn one’s brokenness into beauty.

Since childhood I’ve lived with a chronic disease. I couldn’t ignore physical struggles. What I learned, as I observed life, was that no one—no matter how strong and healthy, no matter how gifted or talented, no matter how well-off financially—no one is immune to sickness, disease, injury, pain; loss of loved ones through disease, death, divorce or war; loss of support structures; mistreatment; loss of job, status, social standing. You name it, you and I can be affected by any or all of these in a heartbeat.

For as many people as there are in the world, there are as many different responses to suffering. I’ve seen some people who tragically fall apart. Some turn their backs on God, “losing their faith.” Some people turn to deceptive and destructive “aids” such as alcohol or drugs. Others even walk away from the pain and agony of suffering family members, leaving a wake of ruined relationships and bloodied, trampled hearts. Many become bitter, blaming anything and anyone, especially God, for their woes, clearly revealing their belief that suffering should never have come their way, as though they should be somehow exempt.

Then there are others who appear to just survive, getting through the hard times, as the old saying goes, “by the skin of their teeth.” They grumble and complain their way through it all, with a dark cloud over their lives, like Eeyore, the pitiable friend of Winnie the Pooh. Not an appealing sight.

Thankfully, we’ve also seen those who seem to go through suffering and trials with poise, with grace in the midst of their struggles. Though they have real fears and battles, they aren’t beaten down but actually thrive as a result of their ordeals, real ordeals, coming out the other side of the dark valley stronger and better for their time of struggle. They encourage onlookers by their spirit in the throes of troubles. How do they do it? The answer has more to do with what is inside us than what comes at us from the outside.

I’ve heard from people who went through terrible ordeals and yet came through them praising God that as a result of that ordeal they have a stronger faith in and a deeper relationship with God, that they are better human beings for the experience. Because I’ve had to deal with Myasthenia Gravis (MG), I’ve learned valuable lessons in how to live. I’ve been learning for most of my life to allow my brokenness to change my character, transforming my weakness into inner strength. It matters not what we are born with or what comes into our lives. It only matters what we do with those things.

As an adult in mid-life I was diagnosed with breast cancer, a whole new world of threat. I worked through it day by day. Cancer presented new challenges and new fears for me to face, and those challenges and fears weren’t easier than others I’d faced previously; they were just different. I came to realize, however, that the way I dealt with these new cancer challenges and fears was the same way I dealt with the old familiar challenges and fears of MG.

Facing the scary reality of cancer in my life, dealing with it day by day, I added the dimension of blogging about my struggles as I went through treatment.  To my surprise, the readers told me my blog postings encouraged them, time after time. It has been these readers, along with other significant people in my life, who have prompted me to write this book. They told me numerous times I should write a book so more people could benefit from what God has been teaching me about going through suffering and thriving through it, about using my brokenness to create a beautiful life.

This blog will present my book, “Brokenness to Beauty: Transforming Your Brokenness into a Beautiful Life”.  Most of the book will be here in my blog postings, but not all of it. I plan to publish the complete book when I finish blogging it.

So come along on this journey with me from blog to book … from Brokenness to Beauty.