Okay, you "win" this one.

It's not a competition. Or rather it shouldn't be. Who wants to win at having the hardest life?

Kara, over at Mundane Faithfulness, has often said, "I'm not trying to win the hardest story.  We all have hard."  She's right, we all do have hard in our lives.  We all walk through hard things and what is hard for us may not be hard for another.  Grace enters in when we can empathize with someone's hard that we may not understand.  Kara also doesn't allow others hard to be diminished in light of her hard.  Oh, I should mention that Kara is dying.  In June 2012 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and even though they have done aggressive treatments the cancer has traveled her body and is invading even her skeletal structure. Kara knows hard.  She has a husband and four children she is preparing to live life without her physical presence. She has had to go through the grieving process, grieving over the loss of the life she dreamed of and desired and accepting the one she lives.  The other day Kara asked a good question in response to the statement, "I would like my life back!"  She asked, "What if this is your life? Would God still be good? I know- I'm such a jerk for saying this. I have to ask this question of myself regularly."  I can't think of anyone else who deserves to be wrestling with that question more than Kara right now.  She is honest in her wrestling but her final answer always ends up being yes, God is still good even though she will not get to watch her children grow up and she won't get to grow old with the husband she adores.

Yes, Kara knows hard.  But we all know hard don't we?

Here's what the reality of our hards could be and perhaps should be. Philippians 2:4 says to look out not only for our own interests but to look out for the interests of others as well.  In my hard I am going to be aware and concerned for your hard and focus on meeting the needs of your hard, trusting and knowing that someone else will be doing the same for me in my hard.  See how that works?  We get taken care of. When we allow the interests of others to be our interest as well then our personal interests get the attention of someone else's care.  Sometimes our hard limits us in how we can meet the needs of someone else's hard. That's when it is time to get creative. We all have a capacity to meet the hard of others, it just might take some extra creativity.

Recently I was thinking about another benefit of being aware of other's hards.  It gives our hard some perspective. Hear me, it doesn't diminish it just puts it into perspective.  And in my experience we all need our hard to have perspective. And sometimes what happens with perspective is I look at my hard and their hard and I say, "Okay you "win" this one.  Your hard is way harder than mine. What else or what more can I do for you in this hard? My hard can wait, it's not as urgent."  I look at Philippians 2:4 and see this concession as another way of looking out for the interests of others.  And sometimes, okay maybe most of the time, as we concede our hard and dedicate ourselves to the hard of another then ours loses its urgency, its power, the grasp that has us in a tight fist loosens.  When we eventually return to our hard, because we always need to return to it and deal with it, we have different eyes and a different mindset toward it.  Perhaps we even have a renewed strength to tackle it.

What if the hard you are experiencing right now is the new normal for your life?  What does that mean for you?  For your family?  For your friendships?  For your career?  Are you so immersed in your hard that you can't see the hard of the person near you?  Is this a season for you to focus in on the hard of someone else or your own?  Who is "winning" for the harder hard in your circles?  Can you trust that as you minister to the hard of someone else that your own hard will be ministered to as well?

Hear me once again, I am not diminishing the hard of anyone but I'm challenging all of us to gain perspective of our hards so we can both minister and be ministered to.  What would be different about our hards if we could find peace, hard peace, in them?