All these furnaces of trial as they are, purify and ennoble the man who has to pass through them. -- Samuel Ringgold Ward, abolitionist and newspaper editor

All our lives we've been faced with a multitude of challenges. Each day can bring a simple test for you to scale or those that seem to knock the very life from you. And sometimes problems do knock you out – so low you can't fathom getting up, recovering, forgiving or forgetting. But remember that issue that pledged to rip your skin off this time last Wednesday, the one that left you heartbroken, cheated, and just plain angry? Today it's not the big fire-breathing dragon it was then, is it? It may still haunt you, but it didn't kill you. In fact, it did make you stronger, wiser, and much more alert. AND, guess what? You're still here!

What if the 10 million captives on the ships that sailed through the Middle Passage had not willed themselves to live? Imagine your ancestors treated as savages, shackled to one another, breathing the other's tainted air, not knowing where they were headed, but trusting God to protect them from the ravages imposed upon them, imagine they had perished. We may not have been conceived to ensure tragedies such as this never happen again.

Had Black folk been privy to the esteemed halls of higher education, HBCUs may have never been born to produce some of the finest leaders and thinkers of our time. Had Oprah not divulged and survived her sexual and drug abuse, would she be able to empower others beyond their circumstances? If Ida B. Wells' friends had not been lynched and she forced from her home in Memphis, it's quite possible laws would not exist that outlaw the practice of lynching, and, like Billie Holliday, we'd still see strange fruit hanging from some Southern trees. And if Judas had not betrayed Jesus, would we receive eternal life?

There's always a lesson and blessing in the struggle as nothing just happens by coincidence. While you're going through it, it may be hard to see how it's all connected. It may be difficult to smile, work, eat or any other thing necessary for healthy functioning. But on the other side, just over the mountain, after acknowledgement and honest appraisal of the dysfunction, lay the peace you've always sought and the love your heart craves. And because you went through and made it, you are available to minister to others and capable of receiving peace, love and so much more. Let your pain and suffering heal the world. Speak from it; conquer as a result of it. From your pain, bring about a new thing.

Sadiqqa © 2007