However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names

– Henry David Thoreau

Tonight my husband was talking about seeing the “hand of God” (or whatever you may refer to as that which is greater than you, your higher power). My husband then proceeded to talk about seeing the backhand of God (as in a backhand smack across the back of the head–Marc Harmon in NCIS style).

We all had a good chuckle; a chuckle that sprang from a personal knowledge of, and experience with, that backhand. Infertility is that backhand.

When life is beautiful, when miracles land at our door, it can be easy to be effusive about the blessings, the “hand of God (your higher power, creator, etc.).” Yet, when life gives us an unexpected smack upside the head, those blessings may not be so easy to locate. And in those moments we can define our lives as rather mean.

Sometimes however, the only way to wake us from our blissful slumber so that we can go where we need to go, heal what we need to heal, unearth what was always meant to be found, and love what our hearts were made to love, is through a surprise backhand.

And so, however mean your life may feel, meet it and live it, do not shun it and call it hard names. For it is often only through that jolting blow that we can be shaken from our indifference and encouraged to rise into our greatness.