A Lesson Learned

Look at your hands. What do you see? Callous, scars, blisters. They're all battle wounds, the rewards of hard work earned. They're what holds me together when I feel broken, beat up, cast down. So many people do not like callous or scars. It means that they have been hurt and are deformed from it. They're no longer flawless and that scares many. I do not understand that fear. Maybe I once did as a young child but it has long been forgotten in my years of sport and life.

Getting hurt brings pain and with it a lesson. You can choose to listen or fear the pain and ignore it with a vow never to hurt again. That's fine if you run, no one will blame you. What if you listened to pain's lesson? Pain would teach how to do it better next time. Many think Pain is an enemy but they're wrong. She is a dear friend of any who listens. It's why many parents let their children play in the dirt or spank them when they did wrong. The kids learn from it. I have learned from it.

The last six years of my life have been filled with lots of pain. Pain on the football field, breaking up with a long time girlfriend, suffering daily on a weightlifting platform, getting through college, you name it! There have been many days Pain has sat me on the ground and almost broke me. Imagine sitting on the ground with my hands on my face, numb, just blank for what feels like an eternity. Then I look down at my hands see my scars and callous which sends me back to the lessons Pain taught me. She calls out and wakes me from my numbed state. I see that I have been healed from my lessons and made stronger. The callous is my armor physically and mentally. The scars are tattoos portraying lessons learned. I feel a rush of defiance swell within and fight the urge to quit and run away. That would be easy, that would be normal. Easy is the road the ones without courage take.

Pain teaches courage. Ask the courageous people in your life and see if they learned courage while they were comfortable. They didn't. Keep fighting in the Pits. Whenever you feel like breaking just stop, look at your hands. They'll remind you of everything you've already been through and prove to you that you can take so much more. One day there won't be a need to fight any longer and you can pass your knowledge onto another who is fighting as you once did. Until then, stay strong and keep fighting.