I meet with an executive coach once a month, and our last meeting left me with more questions than answers.
At one point, she pointed out that I use the word hard a lot.
This conversation is hard.
That situation is hard.
This decision is hard.
That season is hard.
She suggested that I may have a tendency to focus on the negative side of things and challenged me to interrupt the pattern. To look for opportunities instead of obstacles. Gifts instead of burdens. Lessons instead of struggles.
Then she asked a question that caught me completely off guard.
“Does everything have to be hard?”
I wasn’t prepared for that. Partly because I didn’t realize I used the word so often. Partly because someone else in my life once accused me of being a pessimist, and hearing her observation brought that old memory rushing back.
But mostly because I wasn’t sure I agreed with her.
Does everything have to be hard?
No.
But aren’t some things?
When she asked me to name something truly hard, I said burying a loved one.
She challenged that too.
Could there still be gifts? Blessings? Lessons?
I’ve been thinking about that conversation ever since. Not because I think she’s wrong. But because I’m not sure she’s entirely right either. The older I get, the more suspicious I become of simple answers.
I’ve known people who always seemed able to find the bright side of things. One former coworker comes to mind. He was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. He genuinely tried to approach life with optimism and gratitude. And yet life often seemed unfair to him.
Not because he lacked faith.
Not because he lacked positivity.
Just because life sometimes hurts.
As I’ve sat with this over the past couple of weeks, I keep coming back to the same question:
Are we supposed to find the positive in everything?
Or is it enough to acknowledge that something is difficult and trust that God is still present within it?
I’m honestly not sure.
What I do know is that some of the most meaningful experiences in my life have come from circumstances I never would have chosen.
Raising teenagers.
Career challenges.
Relationship struggles.
Disappointments.
Losses.
None of those felt like gifts while I was living through them. Some still don’t.
Yet when I look back, I can often see growth that came from those seasons. Not because they weren’t hard, but because they were.
Maybe that’s the distinction I’ve been missing.
Perhaps the goal isn’t to pretend something isn’t difficult.
Perhaps the goal is to avoid stopping there.
To acknowledge the struggle without allowing it to become the entire story.
I don’t know that I’ll ever stop using the word hard.
Some things deserve the label.
But maybe the better question is what comes after it.
What is this hard thing teaching me?
What is God doing within it?
What might I see someday that I can’t see today?
I don’t have all the answers.
But maybe I don’t need to force every hard thing into a lesson before I’m ready to see what God is doing with it.