Almost Free Marketing by David DeFord

I was planning to write about the first element of my Creed

today as I promised last week. But I’ve been prompted to

give you this article instead.

I assume one or more of you need this message.

I try to follow my promptings (that’s also one of my creed

elements).

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Hard Times Can Lead Us to the Good Life

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In two years I suffered many serious challenges.

At the beginning of this period I endured an intense job

challenge. For twelve long months I labored night and day

under terrible strain. Then, in a sweep of all senior

management, I lost my job. A few months later my father

passed away after years of suffering from emphysema and

lung cancer.

Then, my wife underwent serious and difficult surgery. Next,

my volunteer service to the refugees from Sudan took

several difficult turns, including a week in which Kathy and I

went into hiding because of serious death threats.  The stork

delivered our grandson Wyatt seven weeks too early. Our

precious little guy remained in intensive care for weeks. And

lastly, I fell down my front steps and suffered a serious spiral

fracture in my foot.

Everyone endures trials. Usually they come less rapid-fire,

but we all suffer from life’s challenges. Business failures,

wayward children, sicknesses, injuries, death of loved ones,

or financial ruin can strike anyone. These challenges can tear

us down or they can build us up. We choose.

Why do we face adversity? What can we gain from our

difficulties? The most pertinent answers to these questions

spring from deep spiritual principles. But this isn’t the forum

to discuss them.

Hard times challenge everyone. But why?

To Help Us Appreciate the Better Times

Normally, we think little of a tall glass of ice water and a cool

shower. But after mowing grass for two hours in the hot

August sun we crave them.

Just as hot summer days help us appreciate the cooler days

of autumn, so failure and rejection help us appreciate our later

successes.

John Grisham couldn’t get his first novel, A Time to Kill,

published. So he self-published and sold the books out of his

car trunk. Louis L’Amour received 350 rejections before his

first sale. He later went on to have more than 200 million

copies in print. Dr. Seuss’ first children’s book was rejected

by twenty-seven publishers. Mary Higgins Clark received

forty rejections, Jack London 600, and Alex Haley received

one rejection per week for four years.

I feel sure these early rejections made sweeter their million

dollar contracts.

To Build Our Strength and Endurance

Beginning runners strain at jogging a mere mile. But after

months of marathon distance training they can run fifteen

miles as an easy day.

Our trials can help us build our strength and endurance so

that we can endure the later challenges in our lives, and they

help us propel ourselves to greater achievement.

Consider Roger Bannister. As a young man, he suffered the

crippling effects of polio and was told that we would never

walk. By drawing on this adversity he pushed himself to

greatness; he became the first man to run a sub-four-minute

mile. His affliction propelled him to the most noted track feat

in history.

To Teach Us Valuable Life Lessons

. From our misfortunes we can learn such lessons as:

. We reap what we sow

. We must honor our promises

. The good life is more than gaining wealth, and

. Leave plumbing to the professionals (I speak from personal

experience on this one.)

To Help Us Gain Greater Empathy for Others

After experiencing many of life’s challenges, we feel more

understanding and empathy in the trials of those around us.

We seek to help them through their difficulties, and we can

better comfort and encourage them.

We can convert our hard times into the good life. We need

only learn from our challenges and turn them to our

advantage.

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Related Quotes

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than

before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way

and that so many things that one goes worrying about are

of no importance whatsoever. Isak Dinesen

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

Francis Bacon

Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.

Malcolm Forbes

When one door closes another door opens; but we often look

so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do

not see the ones which open for us. Alexander Graham Bell

Most successful people can identify one minute, one moment,

where their lives changed, and it usually occurred in times of

adversity. Willie Jolley

The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this.

Irritations get into his shell. He does not like them. But when

he cannot get rid of them, he uses the irritation to do the

loveliest thing an oyster ever has a chance to do. If there are

irritations in our lives today, there is only one prescription:

make a pearl. It may have to be a pearl of patience, but,

anyhow, make a pearl. And it takes faith and love to do it.

Henry Emerson Fosdick