When Shit Makes You Stronger

For the last ten years, my husband and I practiced passiveness to a fault towards other people. We figured that since life was okay for us, we can afford to be nice to people regardless of their behaviour towards us. We even tipped servers who were total jerks to us in the spirit of kindness. We also didn’t know how to say no. If we could just let it pass, we just let it pass.

Our passiveness also extended towards life situations. When things went south, we just adjusted and accommodated instead of fighting for things to go north. We didn’t even ask for things to get better and instead we just tried to see the positive in our situation and took it as better.

But I guess God, in His infinite wisdom, decided that we needed to learn to fight for things that we wanted. But we will never do that unless my husband and I were pushed so far away from our comfort zone that there was no other choice but to fight. This year has been that year. When our landlord would not decrease our annual rent, we decided to look for another flat even if there was only 5 days left in our annual contract before we had no other choice but to renew it. That seemed mission impossible considering that we needed time to look and move. But on the same day that we searched, approximately in an hours time, we found a flat that fit our budget. We were able to move in 3 days and had some time to spare before our old contract expired. The documentation took an extra 4 days more but that itself was also a feat.

A day before moving in to the new flat, my husband found out that it was still dirty and unliveable. I called the real estate agent and coerced them to ready the flat that night. In less than 24 hours, they completed all the maintenance work and polished the flat until it was spic and span. All I had to do was ask and demand for things to be done.

God taught us through our newfound situation to ask for things we want even if the situation seemed impossible to give it. We no longer tolerate bad service and now ask for better ones. I also drew boundaries with toxic people and demanded the respect that I deserved in that relationship. When a situation says no, I pushed for other ways for it to say yes. I even demanded more in my prayers. I now unabashedly ask God for things that I want to happen in my life.  My husband and I shed our passiveness and relearned how to fight.

Sometimes God turns our life upside down and inside out because we still have some life lessons to learn. The key is trying to find that lesson and becoming good students so that our shit can literally make us stronger and better.