Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened.
Helen Keller (1880–1968)
Where across the course of your day today, could you consider where it might be that you stop running from the storm and take one step directly into it?
Storms have a way of revealing character.
On the wide plains of North America, ranchers noticed something curious about how two animals respond when dark clouds roll across the horizon.
Cattle sense the storm and instinctively turn away from it. They run in the same direction the storm is travelling, trying to escape what is coming.
But the storm is faster, so the cattle end up running with the storm, trapped inside it for longer than necessary.
Bison behave differently.
When they sense the storm approaching, they turn toward it and walk directly into the wind and rain.
Because the storm is moving toward them, they pass through it faster. Instead of being chased by the storm, they move straight through the centre of it and reach clear skies sooner.
Nature has a way of revealing powerful truths; many of the storms in our lives do, too.
The difficult conversations, the decisions we have been avoiding, the uncomfortable truths, the work we know must be done, the realities we must face.
When we run from these storms, we often carry them with us longer than necessary.
When we face them directly, we move through them, not because the storm disappears, but because courage shortens the journey.
While you’re thinking about that, think about this and have Gr8 day!
Be well,
DL
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
Winston Churchill (1874–1965)