A young woman was having a difficult time in life. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose. She went to visit her grandmother and poured out all her troubles.

Her grandmother listened carefully, and when the story was all told, took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see." "Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

"Feel the carrots," said the grandmother. She did and noted that they were soft. "Break the egg," instructed the grandmother. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.

"Now taste the coffee." The granddaughter inhaled its rich aroma, and then sipped the dark strong beverage. The granddaughter then asked, "What does it mean, grandmother?"

Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The coffee grounds were unique, however. While the boiling water changed the carrot and the egg, the grounds changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her granddaughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean? If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth; one of the greatest truths." There may be times of joy and contentment and peace, but sooner or later, adversity visits us all, and like an unwelcome guest, comes and goes at its pleasure, rather than ours. Adversity comes in many forms: illness, grief, financial problems, family struggles, social unrest, war and more - it comes in many forms, but sooner or later, it comes to us all. We are seldom ready, but there are things we can do to prepare.

First we can remind ourselves that even when the world is against us, God is for us. The Hebrews, the story goes, were enslaved and treated cruelly by the Egyptians. They probably wondered whether God had abandoned them, and what they had done to offend him. But then, God appears to Moses from a burning bush. This should not be taken too literally. It is a theophany, a mystical experience that can only be described in symbols and metaphors. Perhaps you've had a moment when you've seen the world in a whole new way, when you've realized you've been looking at things all wrong, when the eyes of your heart have been enlightened. That's what happened to Moses. He realized that God was communicating with him, assuring him that God notices the suffering of his people, that God cares when his creatures are in trouble, and that God was actively seeking to do something about it, through him.

There are times when in the difficulties of our lives, we wonder whether we have been abandoned. At such times we need to cultivate the faith that the "God who is," reality itself, is with us. Emmanuel, God with us, is one of the titles we give to Jesus, because we believe that in Jesus, God is revealed not as a remote, abstract being, but as the compassionate heart that suffers when we suffer and rejoices when we rejoice. We are not alone, but the one who loves us, has gone down the difficult road of suffering before us. And so we know that even in the most difficult experience, even in the greatest challenge, even at the loneliest times of our lives, we are not alone. God is with us, in life, in death, in life beyond death.

Second, we can choose, even in the most difficult circumstances, how we will respond. We do not have to be victims, or feel that our lives are out of our control. As Paul encourages us in this lovely reading from Romans, "Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering; Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but consider what everyone will recognize as honourable;. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

This is what Victor Frankl learned as a prisoner in Auschwitz, what he called the last of the human freedoms, the freedom to choose, even in the most desperate of circumstances, our own way and our own attitude. Frankl lived from day to day with almost no food, brutal treatment at the hands of the prison guards, and the knowledge that at any moment he could be killed. But he cultivated that last of the human freedoms, the ability to choose to be noble in the midst of depravity, to be loving in the face of cruelty, to be courageous in the face of threat, to be hopeful in the face of fear.

I am reminded of the final words of the letter NDP leader Jack Layton wrote shortly before his death on Monday. To his fellow Canadians, Layton wrote, "Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one - a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity… Don't let them tell you it can't be done. My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Even facing death, Layton chose hope, chose optimism, chose love. Whether you agreed with his politics or not, you have to admire him for that.
One more thing we can do to prepare for the difficult times in our lives is to commit ourselves to a great cause. When we live only for ourselves, then facing trouble seems like a denial of life. But when we devote our lives to a great cause, to a noble work, to a transcendent vision and a worthy dream, then life and the difficulties of life acquire a beautiful dignity.

This is why Jesus, facing his own suffering and death in Jerusalem, encourages his followers with these great and challenging words: "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life."

There is a deep truth in those words. We have only one life to live, and we have to choose how to live it. We can live for selfish ambition, or we can devote ourselves to a great cause. Nothing worthy of our devotion can be accomplished in a single lifetime, someone wise once said, so a truly great cause will be one to which we will devote our lives without ever seeing its fulfillment. Nothing worthy of our devotion can be accomplished without hardship, without cost, so a truly great cause will require us to put our own selfish ambitions aside, in small ways and in great ways, in the service of something greater. As Leo Tolstoy wrote, "It is by those who have suffered that the world has been advanced." "Suffering and success go together," someone wise once said. "If you are succeeding without suffering, it is because others have suffered before you. If you are suffering without succeeding, it is that others after you may succeed."

What is a truly great cause? Some live for their family, but a family needs something greater than itself too, or it becomes corrupt and narrow. Some live for their nation, but nations too can become corrupt and self-serving if they do not have a great vision before them. Some live for their church or for their faith, but a church is just as subject to distorted vision as a family. That is why Jesus calls us to follow him, not our family, not our nation, not our church, but him. Only in devoting ourselves to the one who is perfection itself, reality itself, goodness itself, do our lesser loyalties fall into place. Only in service to God, can our family life, patriotism, church and other loyalties reach their highest potential.

So those are a few things that can help us negotiate the difficult times in our lives: remembering that we are not alone; choosing the noble way and the positive, loving attitude; devoting ourselves to a great cause, to the greatest goodness we know.

In one of his plays Thornton Wilder tells of an infirm doctor who stood one day by the pool of Bethesda, which the gospel of John says, when troubled by an angel, contained waters of healing. This doctor, who had suffered long, yearned to be healed, but when the angel came, he went to the doctor and said, "stand back. Healing is not for you. Without your wound where would your power be that sends your low voice trembling into the hearts of men? We ourselves, the very angels of God in heaven, cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children of earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love's service, only wounded soldiers will do."

And so it is that in suffering the difficulties of life, we can emerge not soft and weak, nor hard and callous, but able to join the crucified Christ as a fellow wounded soldier in love' service. May it be so for you, and me, and us all. Amen.