Many years ago I attended a Unitarian church where the minister always signed her letters to the congregation, "Yours in the struggle." I was thinking of this phrase the other day in the midst of a very difficult situation. We encounter many struggles in our lives, small and large, daily and ones that continue through our life-cycle. This particular struggle for my family was quite big.
I began to think about how we, any of us, make it through genuinely hard times. I also began to think about that line, "yours in the struggle." I started to ask, "who is ours in the struggle?" And, "who is with us in the struggle?"
I began to imagine God, or the Divine, speaking that line: "I am yours in the struggle." There is a sense of belonging and connection and absolute loyalty. It may be true that when we really undergo hardship we feel alone or disconnected from the Good, but it is not a truth. Suffering can lead us to feel abondoned by the Source of Peace, but nothing is closer to us in a crises than God. Many people have found this to be so; in fact, many people do not come to a spiritual understanding of life until they undergo a hardship.
It makes me think of two of my most favorite lines in the bible: "All thing work together for good for those who love God" (Romans 8:28), and from the very end of Genesis: "You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good" (Gen. 50:20).
You can probably think of times in your life or in the life of someone you know, when the worst happened and out of that came unexpected or unimagined good. All things can work together for the good--even struggles. All things do work together for the good. Keep your eyes on the good. Even, in a struggle, give thanks in anticipation of the good that will come.
It is almost impossible to be in a real crises and see through it to the good that may be, and yet if we can hold--cling!--to that real possibility, we can ride through the struggle with the sense that we are "Yours," that we are God's, that we are beloved children who are presently being cared for. It is a feat of imagination and sometimes fortitude to believe that out of what seems bad or evil, awful or wicked, a good thing can emerge, but we all have the gifts to do this. And the very first good thing that comes is a compassion. We become the peope who hear another person's suffering and are there for them in the struggle. Our hearts open.
In certain ways, it is as simple as "there is a light at the end of the tunnel." Except it is more more powerful and present. The light is ours now, and believing and trusting that helps us to see the Good that always exists, unfailing, all-present, more powerful than any struggle--the only power.
I wish you strength for the practice of such daring believing! And I am yours in the struggle.
Rev. Sam Wilde
