Life is full of ups and downs, am sure you’ve heard that said countless times.
Tough times don’t last but tough people do; a popular quote that some would be cool with just saying than practicing.
Well, life happens and will always happen but the way you go through what happened will determine if you would come out broken or better.
Brokenness is a word that most people know to be on the negative but do you know that brokenness is a painful beautiful experience than can mold us into something sweet. You see someone who has been mistreated and show all manner of meanness but yet they come out sweet and caring and so full of compassion and you wonder, how did you turn out like this?
Broken, healed and they don’t look like what they’ve been through. Someone else goes through the same thing and comes out bitter and angry at everyone and always brewing vengeance at every slightest provocation. The heart, personality and perspective has a lot to play in all this.
One of the sweetest experiences in relating with people is when you see the kindness and sweetness that emanates from people who have been through a lot and don’t look like what they’ve been through.
One day I remembered vividly that I was talking with a colleague of mine and she started telling me what she and her family have been through in the last three years.
When she was done talking, I asked her a question, I said, how did you go through all these and you are still so sweet and always smiling? She said, I don’t look like what I’ve been through.
She younger brother had been involved in an accident that left him bed ridden and she had to juggle between school as a law student which is very demanding and taking care of her brother.
A year later the mum took ill and was diagnosed with breast cancer. The brother’s condition and her mum’s condition was sapping the family funds and she still needed to be in school. Her mum passed on a year after chemotherapy and all.
Her younger brother has been through sixteen surgeries and was going in for the seventeenth one as at when she was talking to me. The family funds are depleted and lack of funds was keeping the surgery pending.
She said it kills her to see her brother in pain because as at when else talked, the iron cast inside left leg had shifted from position and was causing him intense pain and amidst all these she could still smile.
I stood speechless watching her and wondering what kind of human she was. How could she have such joy in the midst of all these situations? All I could say was indeed, you don’t look like what you’ve been through.