"We know them all already, because they are in the Joke Teller's Compendium. People just need to say the number and we know which joke he is talking about.

 

Curious, the newcomer decides to try it. 

 

"Eighty one!" he shouts with gusto. Silence. 

 

Embarrassed, he turns to the person next to him.

 

"Why didn't anyone laugh?"

 

"Sounds like you are having a fifty nine kind of a day. I am sorry.'

 

"Your husband's job is throwing a two hundred and four into your relationship? That is tough."

 

I do not want to imply that the struggles are not real. They are. A man who works a sixty hour week is not spending much time with his family. A wife who suffers with postpartum depression needs support.

 

But something shifts in me when I step back and squint my eyes. All of those difficulties can become the catalyst for spiritual maturity. Patience does not take root when everything happens on your schedule. Compassion is not gifted to people who have escaped pain. Forgiveness is the phoenix of despair.

 

I think I first became suspicious when I noticed how many of the friends I respect most grew up with alcoholic fathers, or survived a parent's early death. These were the people I chose to come to when I felt lost. Perhaps it was because they had grown in directions that only show up when there is a rock in the way. They had resources of kindness born of knowing hurt.

 

Perhaps we are all given a different flavor of adversity. One day we will look back and realize that the sweetness became a part of who we are, while the pain has long since disappeared.