Sometimes motivation and lessons can come from the strangest places.
We have been diving into the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen for bedtime reading with our kids and I couldn’t help but have to forge ahead myself in the story since we weren’t getting through much each night and I just had to know what happened. Interestingly enough, there were some very delightful and inspiring lessons in this book that I really needed at this point in my life –
The biggest one being that sometimes it’s the very act that we think will destroy us that in fact leads us to our greatest triumph.
Let me explain (and sorry if I spoil the book's ending for anyone interested) but essentially this book is about a boy who not only survives a plane crash but now has to survive, stranded, in the Canadian north, with nothing but a hatchet.
The story commences sharing his struggles and processes in a very fascinating, tangible way …
but the part that really hit me is that at one point when he is doing quite well and has himself set up for survival quite nicely, massive winds hit and destroy everything he had built.
However, these winds also churned up the lake and resulted in the plane that had sunk to the bottom to get stirred up to a point that it was now visible … as you follow along in the story the boy can now retrieve the survival kit in the plane and haphazardly finds, and turns on, an emergency responder which ultimately leads to his rescue.
If it wasn’t for that tornado, destroying absolutely everything, that may boy never have been saved; The greatest tragedy was what resulted in his survival.
We can even see reference to this many times in the Bible – I shared before about Paul & Silas in Acts 16 who were thrown into jail to be killed and God ultimately rescued them and saved many others. The story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) who was sold to slavery by his brothers and then ultimately rose to be a great ruler in Egypt and saved many, including his family, from starvation.
And ultimately, the story of Jesus who was crucified and yet through it defeated death and was resurrected!
In life, as humans, we’re bound to go through some tough shit. It doesn’t matter who we are, or what we believe. But what is important is our attitude as we go through it for we never know what the events could be ultimately leading us towards.
Even in Psalms 23:4 it states, “Even though I walk through the Valley of Death, I fear no evil, for you are with me.'
No matter what, even when it doesn’t feel like it, God is with you and God has a plan. Don’t give up; persevere, because your biggest breakdown could be leading you towards your biggest breakthrough.
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