#64 Holding Hard And Beautiful Together

Life feels heavy sometimes, and I remind you that hard seasons are not proof something has gone wrong. I share a faith-centered perspective that helps us accept life as a training ground, pray with honesty, and learn to hold hard and beautiful together. 
• noticing how “life should be easy” thinking sets us up to panic 
• changing perspective after confession and remembering earth as a training ground 
• naming real hard things like grief, health worries, and family stress 
• accepting life as 50-50 so we stop assuming disaster 
• praying for relief while also asking what God wants to teach us 
• seeing hardship as a path to sanctity and growth in virtue 
• recognizing how our response becomes a witness to others 
• practicing gratitude and sharing it out loud to spread beauty 
• holding hard and beautiful together to avoid pride or bitterness 
• grounding our mindset in Romans 8:28 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 

If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon Kcoaching.com. That's Sharon the LetterK Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard. 

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Transcript

Welcome And The Hard Reality

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sharon Murphy, and I'm a certified life and mindset coach, and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I did an episode a while back, quite a while back actually. I think it was episode number 14, and it was titled When Things Aren't Hard. And the whole point of that episode was about getting clear in our thoughts and how we use phrases that say, it's so hard, or this is really hard, and how that can impact how we view things and just when we deem things as hard when we really don't need to. But today I'm actually talking about when things are hard. Because the truth is life can be hard. It is hard at times. We work to manage our thoughts and our minds, especially here on this podcast and what I talk about. But the truth is that so many of us are going through hard things right now. And I'm gonna be honest with you, there was a time in my life when I really feared hard things. And I feared them so much that it would send me into a tailspin when I experienced them. I didn't handle adversity very well. And in truth, I think a part of it is that growing up, my life was it was really pretty good. I mean, of course I had things, we all do. And I think that there can be a lesson in that because for me, my life was fairly I was fairly sheltered. I was fairly protected. Now it wasn't like my parents gave me everything I wanted, and it wasn't like I had everything handed to me, but I definitely didn't know how to handle challenges or difficulties like I know some people do. I think there's a lesson in that. Sometimes as parents, we try and protect our kids from any hardships, right? We try and protect them or, you know, keep them in a bubble. Of course. We don't want anything bad to happen to our kids. We don't want to see them struggle, we don't want to see them suffer. That's natural. But I think that can be helpful in some t in some ways. I don't want to make it seem like I I wish that things were hard for me. I don't. I'm super grateful for what I have. And it was that was the way it was intended for me. But I know that's not everybody's experience. And I think what it produced in me was just this idea that life should be easier. It should be good most of the time. In fact, in my mind, I probably thought all of the time. And so I was always seeking a life where everything ran smoothly. And I think there's a lot of us like that. But the problem is with this is that it sets us sets us up for some big problems because that's not the reality.

Training Ground Perspective From Confession

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Now, last week I went to confession, and in confession, the priest reminded me of something as I had confessed, you know, what I had been dealing with or my sins, what have you. And one of the things that he said to me was about the fact of changing my perspective, which, okay, the irony is not lost on me that the title of this podcast is To the Heights Change Your Perspective to Change Your Life, right? Ouch, that kind of a kind of hits me a little bit. I'm a little convicted with that, right? That so someone who talks and tries to live this had gotten myself in the weeds of losing my perspective, and that being the perspective of what this is all about. And he had kind of said to me, basically, that just remember this is like a training ground. Our time here on earth is like a training ground, and it's not meant to be perfect. And so I'm gonna share some of the things that came to mind this morning. I had a whole different podcast episode that I had planned, and then this morning when I was sitting there in my prayer time, this came to me. And so it's something that I feel pretty strongly about sharing with you today. In my own life, I needed to get my head and my heart straight. I needed to get myself in a different, in a different perspective. I've

Personal Hard Seasons And Big Feelings

SPEAKER_00 3:53

been dealing with some tough things lately, to be honest. I have been dealing with some things, just to let's just talk about some of the tough things. My son is graduating from, just graduated, we had a ceremony last night from St. Nicholas Catholic School. It's just grades 3K to eighth grade. And all of my kids have gone through that school. And so going through this time of like watching him go through there, there was a sadness about the fact of that this time in our lives is ending. And anytime we something ends, there's a grief, there's a loss, especially if it's something that we've found to be a blessing in our life. Obviously, those things that weren't a blessing, we don't, we don't grieve those. But I've just been dealing with a lot of emotions that I wasn't expecting. I've been dealing with a lot of things emotionally in a lot of different areas, but this is just one of them, being that, you know, I've just filled with all this emotion of the sense of like that it's gone, that it's ending, saying goodbye to this season of our lives. Some other thing, I've just been dealing with some health issues that have just brought up a lot of very challenging emotions for me. Feeling really overwhelmed trying to sort through them all to deal with them, trying to manage my mind, but also managing my emotions. There's also been some family things that we've been going through, both in my immediate family, but also in my extended family. There's been some people that are really having some hard things in their lives. It, you know, that everybody has their own things. I say this all the time to my kids, everybody has their own things that they're dealing with. And it can look different for different people. Some things are much harder than others, but when we look closely enough at everyone's lives, everybody has some hard things that they're going with. And the point of all of this is that I had a coach that trained me initially that I went through certification

Life Is 50-50 Without Panic

SPEAKER_00 5:40

with. It was a secular program, and she liked to say that life is 50-50. And we need to all understand this. And when I first heard it, I agreed with her to some extent. And I didn't know if I loved the way she approached it, but but the truth is she's right. And the whole meaning behind it, I understand. There's good and there's bad. There's hard and there's easy. But the fact is, is the sooner we can accept that life is 50-50, we can accept that hard is just a part of life. And when we start to accept this, why this is so important is because we don't panic in those moments. We don't assume that something has gone wrong. We don't try immediately try and go in and fix or or seek to like solve this problem immediately. Because sometimes, and sometimes there are things that can be solved, and sometimes there's not. Sometimes just understanding that this is just life. And I think that we can gain this perspective the longer we live, just because we've experienced more. So the sooner that we can understand this, it just can really help us to reframe our mind and to approach it with a different mindset. Now it's also important when things are hard to pray for relief or for things to come to a resolution, whatever those hard things are, it's certainly important to turn to prayer and to ask God for help and for guidance and for peace and for clarity as to how to handle these hard situations. But sometimes there isn't a fixing. There isn't a way for us to solve. Either because it's not ours to solve, it's outside of our locus of control, or because it's things that are just, even if it's affecting us personally, it's beyond our control. But one of the things that I think is so important for us to understand is when we're in these hard moments, is that this is very likely if we prayed for relief, if we prayed for help, if we prayed for God to get us through this, and we're not seeing that happening immediately, that this is possibly our path to sanctity. Not

Prayer Virtue And A Faithful Witness

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possibly. It is a part of our path to sanctity. This is what God is allowing in our life. And so this is a time that God is inviting us into use questions in prayer. When we're struggling with this and we're not seeing any answers to this and we're in these hard phases, there's some things that we can take to prayer and ask God, you know, what do you want me to learn here? What is the lesson? Another thing is, where are you inviting me to grow in virtue? Because there's always a way. If this is our path to sanctity, our path to holiness, I talk about our journey to the heights. In our journey, we're going to experience hard things. And so these are opportunities for us to grow in virtue, which is essentially our path to holiness. We may not see the why until later. We may not understand it. Either later in our lives, it'll make sense, we'll understand it, or it might even be in the next life. The other thing is these hard moments when we are focusing on growing in virtue and managing ourselves and how we show up, we don't realize the impact this can have on another person's life. Now, there's someone in my life very close to me whom I love very deeply, is going through some really, really hard things right now. And I'm not sure that she realizes that the way she is handling the hard things in her life, the way she is choosing to turn to God, the way she's choosing to surrender and to trust, and you know, albeit imperfectly, right? I mean, she's not handling things perfectly, but she's she's handling them in a way that is a beautiful, beautiful witness to everybody around her. And that impact, not only to her children, but to her siblings, to her friends, to all of her family members and community. People have her eye their eyes on her and they're watching and they're witnessing how she's handling these really hard things that are beyond her control. Some very, very, very hard things that most of us, you know, it's kind of like our worst nightmare that she's living through. And she's just handling them with such grace and such faithfulness. It's just a beautiful witness. And I don't think we realize that when we do that in our own lives, there's such a power in that. And that is sometimes what God is doing as well, is allowing this to be a witness to other people and to help them along their journey. Our response in these hard times, just to remember, it can be a beautiful witness to others and to help them to turn to God in their own times of difficulty. Now,

Noticing Beauty Through Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I mentioned that life is hard and that it's 50-50. So the other 50, the other 50% of the time, we have to remember that life is also beautiful. It because it is always 50-50. There's always good, even in the dark moments. God is bringing about good. Now, I talked about the situation with my son graduating and the hard things about leaving this behind and all the emotions that have come up for me. But in this particular situation, I'm also amazed about all the goodness and how filled with gratitude I am. There is so many beautiful things. Yes, we're saying goodbye to this community of the school community. I'm reflecting just on the school community. We're still part of the church community. But this community in general, there's I'm part of some women's groups. I think about the parents and the other moms who have journeyed with me throughout all these years. We were at this school for 24 years, from the beginning of my oldest son going until my son graduating now. And I'm just so overwhelmed with all the goodness, all these teachers who have given so much of their time, the people who are have just touched me and who continue to smile and work so hard to bring good to others. There was a one of the moms who called me yesterday morning as we were preparing for their kids, our kids' last day in the graduation, and she just shared with me how grateful she was. They had adopted some children, and her son they adopted them from another country. And they came from some pretty hard circumstances. And her youngest little guy was starting with my son, and she called and was very emotional and just thanked me for the ways in which we had helped him and them on their journey, and also my son. And I was very touched by the fact that she she didn't just think this, but she actually called me to tell me. And it made me realize how often I've been grateful for someone or something, and I've not shared that with them. And that alone, not only are she experiencing the beauty and the goodness and the gratitude, but she shared it with me. And so she shared that beauty and that goodness. And that was just really, really powerful. It honestly touched me so deeply. Another thing is we experienced, we had the end of the school year, we have some family things with our eighth grade students, and we had a kickball game. The parents played against the kids on Sunday night. And just to see the way we all came together and us as parents playing against our boys, our graduating boys, it was a class of all boys. It's not an all-boys school, but that's the way it ended up this year. There was no girls in their class, it's fairly small. We had so much fun and we all reflected on just the laughter and the shared joy as we were all experiencing the emotions of leaving our kids in this next phase when they enter high school, which is a much it's not a big high school, but it's a it's a public school system, most of them will be going to, and it's just bigger. We're gonna lose this small community, we're gonna lose each other. And yet we were able to just really enjoy the moment and all the goodness. And last night we had the graduation ceremony itself. There was awards, there was a priest that was part of these boys' lives that is now over three hours away, made the trip back to celebrate with these boys. It was just such a blessing. I couldn't help but also just think about the formation that was that was being laid early on in my son's life and all of my kids' lives, that I don't even know the impact now. The people who've touched them, the teachers, like I said, the community. This is the stuff that lays the foundation for their entire lives. They had a teacher, a new teacher that came in for their eighth grade year, and she was one of the boys did a speech and he talked about the unexpected unexpected blessing she was that they didn't even know they needed. All these things that God is doing amidst some hard things that we're going through. And, you know, this is just this is just an example. So I also talked about some health things, right? Even though I'm going through some challenges and there's some things I'm dealing with, and it's emotional and it's hard, it's forced me to just to kind of rec recollect, you know, what's important. And as that priest had said to me the other night, to gain some perspective, right? What matters? Looking at my health. Am I doing the things I should be doing? I've neglected a lot of things, and I haven't been taking very good care of my health. It's forced me to look at what I can control, what can I not control? It's forced me to turn to prayer and to rely on God's word. And it's opened up just an overwhelming amount of gratitude for all the family and support that I have right near me, right by me, in my circle, and how much I appreciate that. And I'm just, like I said, overwhelmed with gratitude of all the goodness that surrounds me, even though I'm dealing with some hard things. I talked about family things, this person in my extended family. Just understanding the importance of what family means when things are tough. Either, you know, whether it's yourself personally or somebody in your life who's dealing with things, you realize this. If you've lost a loved one and you've gone through that whole grieving process in the funeral, you hear this over and over and over again. The one of the things they say is how grateful for they are for the support and love of family and friends and community. That's when we rally together. We had a wedding on Saturday of some close friends who are like family to us. Their kids are about my kid's age, and one of their sons got married, and another s another son, the brother, who was a best man, got up and talked about how grateful he was for family and how we're there for each other in the hard times and the good times. It was a time of celebration, but he also just talked about when there's hard things and how we lean on each other. And so this is what happens. There was also, I'm reminded of when we were there in the afternoon, there was a couple that was there, friends of ours that we've come to know. They're a little bit older, and we've sort of adopted them into our family as adopted grandparents, I say to my kids. They are a beautiful couple that kind of stepped into my husband's life just through some work situations. And they have two children that are grown and they don't live close by. And I was talking to the wife, and she was just talking at looking at the reception and all the people, and she was asking who all these people were. And I said, Well, these are family friends, our kids grew up together. This is another family friend of ours. Their kids are all the same age, we've become like family. And she talked about how beautiful that was. And I was reminded of all the goodness, even though we've struggled through some things in our lives, that there is so much that we should be grateful for and thankful for. In my own family situation, we talked about just the things that we're going through, and we've had to have some really tough conversations. And in truth, I didn't show up as well as I would have liked to. But I'm also really acutely aware of the forgiveness that's available and that there's a healing that's always available, right? And that God is present in all of it. He's he's a He's in every single moment. And just seeing the beauty and the blessing of my kids coming together last night for my son's graduation, watching my grandkids look to, you know, my mom, their grandmother, and my mother-in-law, their grandmothers and their aunts and uncles during the mass, and just the beauty of family, community, and all the goodness that God places in our lives. Now you may not find yourself in this situation, you may not find family round, but God gives us so many good things, even amidst the hard things. We sometimes seek for things to be perfect, we seek for things to be easy, and yet that isn't always when we see the beautiful things. It's not in perfect situations, it's not in perfect people, it's not in finding perfect Christians or perfect anything. We don't have to be perfect. It's in just, you know, meeting each other where we're at, loving the best that we can. It's when we can give love, you know, generously and freely, even in the really hard moments, that's when we're able to find the beauty.

Holding Hard And Beautiful Together

SPEAKER_00 18:14

So what I want to offer you is that yes, life is 50-50. Life is hard, very hard at times, sometimes harder than others. It's not always in that place. Sometimes we might feel like we're living in only hard moments or we're living only in the good, and we praise God for all of them. But I want to offer you that I don't really believe that they need to be separate. That I think we can hold these two things, the hard and the beautiful, together. You can get a point get to a point of existing in hard and beautiful at the same time. Because beautiful without hard results in self-sufficiency, pride, maybe even, you know, slacking off in the things we should be doing. It's look, you know, taking things for granted. And then when we just are in those hard moments, without recognizing the beauty or what maybe God is trying to do in our lives, it just results in bitterness or resentment or anger or hopelessness, or sometimes just seeking to fix and solve. When we hold these two together, though, the hard and the beautiful, we we find ourselves living in places of charity, of hope, of faith, of peace, just to name a few. This is what we're all looking for, right? Peace, hope, faith, charity, which charity is just love. And the reality is that we really need to make sure that when we're in those hard moments or where we're in those moments of beauty, that we we learn to hold them both together. We learn to recognize that they're both part of this life. And so where you allow your mind to go is really what determines how you're going to view the 50-50. Now, I know people who live in less than modest homes, less than modest circumstances, low to middle income, and they're extremely happy. They're content. And I also know others who seem to have it all, but they're not happy or peaceful or content. And they definitely don't have joy. And this is because either they are assuming that life is always hard and they're not noticing the beauty, or they're in those places of where things are they're experiencing all the beauty and the goodness, but without the hard, they don't even recognize it. So

Scripture Anchors Reflection Questions And Farewell

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I'm gonna bring in some scriptures here now because this is this is really important. Romans 8 28. For we know that God works all things for good for those who love him. But do we really believe this? Is this something that we hold to when things are hard and we aren't able to see what's on the other side? And then also another one is 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 16 through 18. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you. Now it's likely that we know these scriptures, but I've been challenged to really pray it and and sit with these as not just nice thoughts, but deep truths. And I'm gonna invite you to do the same. Not just these, but there's so many other scriptures that I'm, and maybe you have your own favorites, but these are a few that have that God has the Holy Spirit has pointed me to in this this last time here, this last little while. So as we wrap up, I just want to say, remember that life is 50-50. And when you can understand and accept this, it can make all the difference. Understanding that this is just part of the life that we're living, that we're in a training ground for where we're headed for heaven, which is really the perspective that we should maintain. And that hard and beautiful are both true, and they can exist at the same time, and actually they should exist at the same time. That's actually what brings about what God wants in our lives. So what are you dealing with right now that's hard? What are you dealing with? Because I'm sure there's some hard things in your life, and maybe you don't have them right now, but you had them recently, or you're gonna have them soon, and you know this as well. Are you letting it take you out? Are you confused or resisting? Are you seeking to just fix the hard? Or are you letting yourself lean into it and turning to God and asking him what he wants to show you, teach you in this moment? And then also where are you finding beauty? Because we do need to look for it. If you don't see any, then look deeper. Slow down and just ponder the things in your lives. And then if you're experiencing the beauty, how can you share that with others? How can you bring that to somebody else in your life? So today I want you to know that if you're experiencing hard things, you're in the right place and you're not alone. Look around and you'll find so many other people that are likely going through hard things as well. Accompany them, pray for them, pray with them, and also bring beauty, truth, goodness, and love to those who may need it today. And until next time, onward and upward, my friends, to the heights. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon Kcoaching.com. That's Sharon the LetterK Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.