True Words Tuesday: Nikki Giovanni

“We go on. Because it is the hard thing to do.

 And we owe ourselves the difficulty.”

       - Nikki Giovanni

Do you ever wonder why so many good people

have such difficult lives? So much pain and sorrow?

I found some insight in Harold Kushner’s book

When Bad Things Happen to Good People,

that helped alleviate my urge to blame God

when shit happens.

Maybe there’s a tempering effect

when we’re thrust into the crucible

and manage to withstand the searing pain

that accompanies our time of trial,

emerging somehow changed,

transformed into better, wiser versions of ourselves.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once said that the most beautiful people

are the ones who’ve known defeat, struggle and loss

and learned to find their way out of the depths.

It is surviving the challenge – slaying the dragon –

that imbues them with a gentleness and inside-out compassion.

Beautiful people, says Kubler-Ross, do not just happen.

Through grace and perseverance, they live their way into beauty. 

Maybe this is our reward for living through the difficulty.
After all is said and done, to be still standing.

Maybe that’s what we owe ourselves and others.