No One Said It Would Be Easy by Rev. Heidi L. Barham Working as a Hospice of the Western Reserve spiritual care coordinator has afforded me the opportunity to companion patients and their families during challenging times as they come to terms with the end of their own life or the life of a loved one. They have much to teach us as it relates to navigating through sometimes turbulent or even treacherous waters. We all face challenging times in our lives. Simply put, life can be hard. But then again no one who is telling the truth ever said it would be easy. The late Robert H. Schuller is credited with saying, “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” And we have all seen more than our fair share of tough times recently including relationship issues, financial hardships, job losses, health challenges and the deaths of loved ones. We will likely face more tough times ahead, but that thought does not need to cause us to panic. We have made it through before and
we will again. The key is to take what we have learned and build a firm foundation to stand on whenever we face difficult times in the future. The building blocks for that foundation include Flexibility, Accountability, Ingenuity, Thoughtfulness, and Hopefulness. Flexibility – The ability to remain flexible and accept that things will not always go as planned makes taking sudden detours in our day a little less stressful. Rather than being angry that things are not going as anticipated, try looking for the silver lining in the cloud. Perhaps that delay in getting out the door might actually have been just enough time to avoid being part of that accident on the highway. Accountability – Holding ourselves accountable for our role in difficult relationship issues can help keep disagreements from escalating out of control. It can also help bring SPRING | SUMMER 2021 | 17
