Traversing the hills and valleys of life with grace

Sometimes, life is hard. I suppose that that is an understatement, to say the least. But then again, life can be easy, too, at times. Those are the hills and valleys of life that we travel. These ups and downs in life can become more meaningful to all of us who want to grow and become wiser. Yet, only if we learn to look at the hills and valleys as a way of learning life’s many lessons, especially if we learned how to handle them with grace.

I read somewhere that none of us are born with wisdom, but we develop it over time through our experiences. In other words, we learn along the way in our journey to our destination. (Related post: Which is the better choice, the destination or the journey? ) It is while we are traveling through those hills and valleys that we can begin to learn deep and wonderful lessons in grace. However, we can only learn from them, if we are willing to see them as lessons about life.

This is certainly a rhetorical question……

Have you ever been in one of your valley moments and you feel a lot of “poor me”, self-pity moments? Of course you have…..you’re human! Then you talk to someone who seems to be going through something much worse and you may immediately look at your situation and see that it wasn’t quite so bad as you thought? Yeah, me too.

Even when our situation is hard and we are in the valley, we need to remember that we will not stay that way before we start climbing up the hill. It is in those times that we need to give God the glory and thanks for his help. We can’t do it alone. We need our family, friends and, most of all, we need God in order to help us to climb that hill. It is in acknowledging Him that we can display the grace that God has given us. That is when we truly can start becoming the person that God knows that we can be.

So, what did I learn from this? I’m never alone in my valley or on the top of my hill, for that matter. I may not understand, yet, why I am going through this, but I know that all will be revealed as long as I am willing to grow in my struggles and be able to trust God on my journey. It’s not easy. God never said that it would be. I just have to be open to the message that He wants me to learn.

What can you gain from this? Reach out to others when you need help and also learn to recognize when others may need help but may be unsure of how to reach out. The give and take can be just as healing to your soul as it may be to theirs.