With the Coronavirus dominating this space for the past couple of weeks I haven’t talked about how my friend is doing. I still talk with her every morning, still tell her stupid jokes, still try to keep her spirits up. Imagine for a moment how you would be handling this Coronavirus thing if you were weakened by cancer, recovering from a painful and invasive surgery, and worried sick about your hundreds of clients losing money in the stock market? Yeah...I can’t even...
So, a few days ago, she was understandably distraught. She has good days and bad ones like the rest of us, but her bad days are made so much worse by her weakened condition both physically and emotionally. She was telling me how she was feeling and she used a certain phrase that I had never heard from her. It’s sentiment startled me, alarming me like nothing she had ever said. So, as is my unfortunate tendency, I unleashed a stern rebuke:
“Listen to me carefully...YOU WILL NOT GET SICK AGAIN. I mean it. This may slow down your recovery, but you are not going backward over one stupid bear market caused by one lousy virus. I will not stand for it. Do you understand me? You have endured too much, conquered too much ground to turn back. I have had quite enough of cancer and so have you...so I don’t want to hear you say that ever again. Ok?? I don’t mean to be ugly about it...but I don’t want to hear that type of negativity from you. If you speak that way you open the door for it. You need to speak positive thoughts into your life. That’s what I have been doing for you for nine months now and for the most part you have been amazingly positive. Negative words and thoughts lead to negative outcomes.”
I immediately felt guilty for the tone of the remarks and apologized. She thanked me for my honesty and said she needed to hear it.
Fast forward to yesterday after the end of another brutal week of losses on Wall Street. It was around 5:00 in the afternoon and I was really down. This time it was my turn to let loose with a string of negative comments. Throughout this past month I have stayed relentlessly positive, not to offer false confidence to my clients but because its how I actually feel, what I actually believe in my heart—that this is a temporary setback and we will all recover and that recovery will be both swift and eventually—complete. But I’m also a human being and as such I am susceptible to despair. Yesterday was a low point and I couldn’t hide it from my perceptive friend. Her response to my negativity was breathtaking:
“I think sometimes someone needs to cheer the cheerleaders. You’ve been strong through all of this and I know the Lord will see us through. Our Lord knows what we are going through and for me its my third storm in 2 and a half years. Do you know what the Bible says to do when we face trials?...PRAISE him in ALL circumstances! Start praising God that he’s working all things out for good! I know its hard to do but I have to tell you I did it when I thought I was going to lose my daughter, I did it on days when the chemo was peeling the skin off my hands, I did it on the days when I was so sick and humiliated by the cancer I couldn’t even move. But, the Lord needs to know that you trust him no matter what. You and I and your clients know that we have no control over what has happened. So, put on some praise music and praise God through the storm! PS...I’m not fussing at you, I’m just telling you like it is. You can do this Doug! I’m an old fashioned woman and I believe the Bible. The mountaintop experiences are for our joy, but the valleys are for our maturing.”
That this woman who has endured such a grueling ordeal could say such things to me was astonishing. But her words steadied me. After all, if she can keep the faith, if she can find joy amidst this nightmare...we all can.
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