Adversity, where is your sting?

Foreword: Those of you who sneak into this space just to know wassup in my life and nothing beyond that, please note that you needn’t waste your precious time on the following. In a nutshell, I’m doin' very well, quit my job, and sittin' at home, enjoying the season while it lasts :-) Those of you who want to know more are welcome to read further.

The title of this post has been the triumphant cry of my heart for the last several months. I’ve been feeling it, believing it and living it, all this while. At this juncture, it would be unfair if I don’t share with you a secret: that I wanted to write on the topic, when my life became a li'l better and more rosy and comfortable than what it is now. Then I realized I have a choice between the good and the best. The former is to point to how my life has been turned around completely and glorify God for the same, and the latter, (which according to me is the best option), is to lay bare how hopeless life seems to me at times, and why I would still challenge the current state of affairs, with all the defiance I can muster and trace the rainbow in the rain!

I celebrated my 25th birthday this month. The silver jubilee of my rather conspicuous existence on planet earth! Yes, I said ‘conspicuous’. Conspicuous, first to the devil, because my name has been on his hitlist for 25 years now, and it gives him pain pangs to realise that it’s gonna remain there for eternity! Conspicuous to the people who love me, because I have been part of their lives, to be loved and to love, to be comforted and to comfort, to laugh and to cry with, for 25 long years. I remember many a peril that struck me in this tenure- from the fits that almost ended me as a 3 month old infant, to the emotional turmoil that nearly strangled me to death as a young person, to the truck that missed me by an inch when I crossed the busy road yesterday! I know that if I’m alive and well today, that’s because God isn’t done with me yet and there’s something significant yet to be accomplished in and through me. Looking back at the yesteryears and days, which tell the tale of His faithfulness holding my hand, refusing to let go, I wanna smirk at the devil and spit out to him these words which are my current favorites, “Adversity, where is your sting?”

Relationships have failed me and I have failed them. People have hurt me and I have hurt them. Love in all known forms- parental, sibling, platonic, romantic-has eluded me time and again. The more I reacted in bitterness, the more bitter I became. The more I buried my wounds, the more I wounded others. My life hasn’t been a fairy tale; it’s as real as yours! However, my journey is tagged, “Mission Accomplished”, because it accomplished the one mission it was assigned- to birth the beauty of Christ in me! The journey which started with an overbearing proud being inflated with ‘I, me myself’ has at the moment reached a broken but healed, lost but found, stripped of self confidence but clothed in Godfidence (read as ‘confidence in God! :-)), giving and forgiving, in short, a distant resemblance of Jesus! When I think of how I was built up through the many failures and disappointments so far, and how I’m better equipped to help others who go through the same, I can only mutter under my breath, as I sigh in relief, “Adversity, where is your sting?”

As any young person who wants to be successful in life, I dreamt of a beautiful future and made fool proof plans to reach them. I admit I never had absolute clarity on everything, but I knew what I wanted to become and how I would get there a few years down the line. At some point in life, it felt like I woke up startled from a nightmare and found myself in a place that I was unfamiliar with even in my dreams…I watched helplessly as my plans for the future fade into nothing with every passing moment. I struggled with questions that crippled me every now and then- “Is it that the dream wasn’t from God in the first place?”, “Wouldn’t I have been left jobless or underpaid if I had pursued what I wanted?”, “ How could I end up at a place I couldn’t even picture myself at?” I still do not have answers to any of these. But what I do have now is something called “trust” which tells me “He who wove you in your mother’s womb knows you better than you do, and hence has better plans for you than you do!” It is complimented by something called “hope” which reassures me that “His ways are higher than yours…so are His dreams for you!” As this hope soars high, a certain joy fills my heart and it says, “Look! Don’t you see a proud Daddy smilin’ down at you?" Now, I stand tall with an undeserving Degree in my hand and a future more colorful than my bestest dream! I hold fast to the 5 years of my higher education which came to me unprecedented, as something I wouldn’t trade for the most promising possibility of MY plans coming to pass! If I were to relive those years of not knowing what I was doing, and feeling deprived of living out the desires of my heart, I would see the end from the beginning, and would turn around and ask, “Adversity, where is your sting?”

The present phase of my life is titled “Waiting”. It goes hand in hand with “Growing”, which is a variant of pain itself! When I recline on my bed, taking a hard look at the days gone by and carefully recording the learnings from it all, something within me lets the alarm on, triggering a train of roadkill questions, “Why me?”, “How long?”, “Would there be an end?”, “What if..?” Sometimes, it ends there, but at times it is just the beginning of committing the gravest sin of all- worrying! Adversity creeps in, in its most subtle but deadliest form- self pity! But somehow the silver lining of the cloud manages to shine through. It lies in the fact that I have become irrevocably accustomed to the goodness and faithfulness of God that my mind cannot be pulled down beyond an extent! It recoils to its initial state of rest, though stretched considerably- rest in knowing that God’s putting the pieces together while I choose to wait…

That’s when I experience something rise in my spirit…
Something that gives me strength…
Strength enough to take one step at a time…
To face one day at a time…
Soon I’d soar on wings like an eagle…
Renewed, refreshed, strengthened in my inner man…
I’d run and not grow weary…walk and not be faint…
Adversity, where is your sting?!