How do we make it through something painful? Megan Johnson, a therapist and the co-founder of The Emily Effect, shares some advice on finding purpose and meaning in our struggles.
TRANSCRIPT of Video:
You know, I think it’s easy to feel angry with God when we’re struggling this way. And, you know, when we’re in the middle of that, I think something that can help us to push through is again, to realize that God has a plan for us and it’s a better plan than we have for ourselves.
And I will say that from my own experience—through losing my sister, through the cycles of depression that I have felt for myself—the greater the sorrow that I’ve experienced, and the greater the pain that I have experienced, God has more than made up for all of that.
And because of the extremities that I have felt—mentally and emotionally in that pain and that anguish—has only helped me to rejoice and to experience the joy and the light that He offers, in a way that I couldn’t if I had not experienced that darkness and experienced that sadness.
And so, if we look at the challenges and the darkness that we go through as a path to being able to feel something better and be something greater than we could without, that gives our suffering and our challenges purpose and meaning.
And when we can find purpose and meaning in it, it changes everything. And to keep going because we know that something better will be there and the joy that you experience from that growth is beyond anything that we can ever experience in this life. We just have to hand it over to the Lord and be patient with His timetable and realize that His timetable is not ours.