We All Face Challenges
By Dr. Glenn Mollette
Everyone will face insurmountable challenges in life. The price of longevity is heartache, opposition, failures, grief and life events that come out of nowhere. Life is filled with the death of loved ones, financial ups and downs, daily health challenges and world events that impact us whether we like them or not.
Russia is going to invade Ukraine. Most of us don’t like Russia anyway but we have to sit here and watch what they are doing to someone else while it negatively affects our energy, financial stability, our military, and our everyday lives. We don’t like it; we don’t want it but we will be impacted by the evil decisions of Russia’s leadership. Can you imagine how the people of Ukraine feel?
We despise what Covid-19 has done to all us. Mask wearing, vaccinations and the fear of gathering have tormented us. The loss of family and friends who went into Intensive Care Units and never came home haunts us. Can we begin to imagine how they felt as they struggled to breathe on respirators their last few days of life?
We have all faced news that a loved one was killed on the battlefield, or someone died suddenly of a heart attack, or received news of terminal cancer.
Typically, we ask why? We ask God, “Why has this happened?” or “Why me, God?” Often there is rarely a good answer. We can analyze and say, “This could have been prevented. Or, this is how he or she should have lived their lives.” Sports fans making suggestions from their recliners while watching reruns always see how the play could have been run better.
Life is always in motion. We make decisions. We react to situations differently. We don’t always do the right thing and emotions often overturn commonsense.
The reality is that we all face and walk through fires. Most of the time we’re hopeful that everything will work out alright. Often, things do. Unfortunately, everything doesn’t always work out alright. If we manage to survive, that’s when we have to help others who are crushed in spirit, who can’t see the light of day for the darkness in their lives.
Ukraine needs their allies or they will never be the same. It can’t be all the United States. We can’t save everyone and have proved it over and again from Afghanistan to Iraq to Vietnam.
There are always those around you who need your emotional and spiritual support. If nothing else, friendship and a word of kindness and support are always meaningful.
Most of the time, we feel as if we face our greatest challenges alone. A lonely place of desperation is a dark place to be.
Don’t ever go there. Look to God. When money, friends, education, hospitals, doctors and the church can’t fix what you are facing God can see you through. He never leaves us or forsakes us. His hand is strong and nothing can pull us out of his mighty hand.
Dr. Glenn Mollette is a graduate of numerous schools including Georgetown College, Southern and Lexington Seminaries in Kentucky. He is the author of 13 books including Uncommon Sense, Grandpa's Store, Minister's Guidebook insights from a fellow minister. His column is published weekly in over 600 publications in all 50 states.
