“On particularly rough days when I’m sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100%. And that’s pretty good.” -AUTHOR UNKNOWN
James 1:13 “Blessed is the man that endureth …”
The word endure is a noble word that we need to put back into our vocabulary. When I’m having a rough day I find myself going through all kinds of mental gymnastics to try to feel great, but it never works. I will replay the event that is making it a rough day and obsess on what I could have done to have preserved the pristine and perfect day. I’ll rehearse my action to see how I could have avoided the emotional fender bender. Those who study grief have identified denial as the first stage of grief. I think we go through the first stage of grief in a way when we say things like, “I don’t believe she said that,” “this is ridiculous,” or even the more adamant, “I’m not putting up with this.”
When I am going through a rough patch I have to let go of the word enjoy and accept that there are things in life that a sane person can only endure. Relational blow ups, the loss of a friend, harsh words, abandonment, my own disappointing performance, or falling short of an important goal aren’t things to be enjoyed, they are to be endured.
It’s really important to learn how to endure rough days because you can definitely make things worse. You can speak harsh words that people don’t recover from and you can absolutely make decisions from which there is no recovery. The landscape of life is littered with people who ruined their career, divorced their spouse, committed homicide or suicide because they were just having a bad day. Endure is a good word. Perseverance will keep you in the game and you will live to fight another day.
I heard Dr. Henry Cloud talk many years ago about the three things that people who don’t recover well from setbacks tell themselves.
- People who don’t recover well from setbacks tell themselves their problems are personal.
“I can’t believe they said that to me.” “I can’t do anything right.” “If only I had been better.” All of these statements mean I am taking the events that are causing me to have a bad day personal.
- People who don’t recover well from setbacks tell themselves their problems are pervasive.
As of this writing I had twenty or so wonderful conversations yesterday and two fairly difficult conversations. I had to resist the feeling over those negative conversations that my whole life is a disaster. By God’s grace I will, in a healthy way, compartmentalizing those challenging conversations and not let them spill out into every corner of my psyche.
- People who don’t recover well from setbacks tell themselves their problems are permanent.
“Things will never change.” “Just my luck.” “Here we go again.” “I’ll never be happy again.” These are the kinds of statements we tend to make when a day starts to go off the rails.
Cheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook said she went back to work at Facebook ten days after her husband Dave died and for a split second during a meeting was able to forget her grief and get absorbed in the discussion. At that moment, she realized that her professional life could still be rewarding and worthwhile, even after tragedy had struck in her personal life.
One of the worst days for me is when a person or family I have loved and invested into decides our church is not for them anymore, so they announce “God is leading us” elsewhere. It’s usually the next Sunday that I look around at a crowded room full of people enjoying the presence of the Lord and realize that such a negative experience of someone leaving our congregation needn’t be personal, pervasive, or permanent.
“While you can’t control your experiences, you can control your explanations.”
– Martin Seligman
