There once was a poor rice farmer, who had a very small field just large enough to feed his family.
Then one day a herd of wild horses came running through the village. They ran into the farmer’s rice field and got stuck in the mud, and since they couldn’t get away, they were his.
His neighbor came running over and said, “This is good news! Such good fortune! You are rich, this is amazing!” And the rice farmer said, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”
A few weeks later the farmer’s 12-year-old son jumped up on one of the wild horses for a ride, only to be thrown off and have his leg broken. The neighbor comes running over and says, “Oh no, this is such bad news!” And the farmer said, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”
A week later a Chinese general is marching through the farmer’s village on the way to war. On this march, the army is conscripting every healthy boy over 10 years of age. So they took every boy in the village except the farmer’s son because of his broken leg.
The neighbor comes running over and says, “Yes! This is wonderful news, how lucky are we!” And the father replies, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”
Last week, as I sat in the waiting room next to a guy with kidney cancer, we began sharing our cancer stories. Seems he was in a serious car accident that totaled his relatively new car. He was telling me how mad he was about losing his car, but it was during tests run to see if he had internal injuries that they spotted the tumor growing on his kidney... I smiled and said, "Yeah, amazing how the accident that you thought was the worse thing that was happening actually turned out to be a blessing that helped you find your cancer!" Good news, bad news, who knows?
Sometimes, when we are in what we think are the darkest of times, they end up being the turning point for great blessings ahead. As I pondered the questions that Nancy Carroll wrote in her study, I felt as if they were written specifically for me (what's that song - To Live Like You Were Dying?) What is my role in the world and why have things happened to bring me to where I am? Quite literally, from the day I was born and almost died from a rare blood incompatibility that my parents had, it turned out to be our ticket out of Cuba just after Fidel had taken over... Good news, bad news... who knows? The pattern has repeated itself as it does now. Multiple Myeloma. That sure sucks. But where am I now? I love my life. I love my husband. I love my kids and their amazing spouses. I am exactly where I had hoped to be and hope to be for many more years...
I hope that even when things get tough for you, and you think you are having your worst day ever... you take some time to find the blessings in your life. They are there. I guarantee it. It may take some time to find them but look for the good that can come out of the bad and one day you may be saying that what you THOUGHT was the worst day ever, actually ended up being a blessing...
