Today was a beautiful day of blues skies and stormy skies. We even had a few moments of hail. The sun was bright yellow and so pretty streaming down through the bamboo forest as I watched the thunderstorm clouds roll across the heavens in vibrant shades of purple and blue. After the thunderstorm raged, the sky cleared and turned azure blue as the sun kissed the edges of the cigar smoke clouds snow white. God always sends that promised gorgeous sky after a storm.

My yard was full of songbirds today between the rainstorms and the sunshines. The purple finches gobbled seeds furiously all day, cleaning the sunflower seeds from two of their favorite feeders. A corral of brown-headed cowbirds joined the cardinals late afternoon. I sat on the porch swing at dusk and watched Mother Nature take up her watercolor brushes and paint the heavens in shades of pink and mauve and yellow and purple. A beautiful rendering of the sun setting on a glorious Monday.

I have a quote that will not leave my mind. “Don’t be defined by your tragedies, be defined by your triumphs,” Viktor Frankl. Been thinking about this quote for several days. I heard it on Bonanza, I think. Sometimes the only way to purge a thought from my mind is to ponder on it and then write about it. I consider the death of my daughter from a car accident and the death of my husband from Covid tragedies. All of us experience heaviness and suffering that plague everyday life. How we deal with these events define our character as we find meaning and purpose in our life. We have to trust that God will ultimately turn tragedy to triumph. When we lose loved ones we have to have enough faith in God to believe we’ll be reunited in eternal life.

Psalm 34:18 reads, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” In Joshua God tells us to be “strong and courageous” to not be discouraged or afraid for “the Lord your God is with you whenever you go.” When we face suffering God will wipe the tears from our eyes. He holds us in his arms and gives us the strength, through our faith, to overcome the darkest of storms. Romans 8:35-39 states, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

We should not feel that heartache is a punishment from God. I can admit I felt God was punishing me when Rosalyn died. I wracked my brain searching for the sin that brought this terrible nightmare to my life. God doesn’t promise us that there won’t be rocks along our journey but he does promise to help us walk that rocky path. We all have free will, we make choices, and life ultimately happens. Tragedies are painful and disrupt our lives but we learn we have to eventually get on with the business of living.

When we tested by storms we can find meaning and purpose in our life as we learn to rely on our faith. We build up our emotional defenses and begin to empathize with others who are experiencing heartache. After Rosalyn died I found myself writing letters to other parents who lost a child, expressing my sympathy, giving them hope of once again walking back into the sunshine of life, assuring them God was walking beside them on their journey of grief.

We all face drama in life and sorrowful events befall us along our journey. How we deal with tragedy defines who we are. When we glorify God he wipes the tears from our eyes and turns our tragedies into triumphs.

“Into every life may come tragedy and triumph. Our goal is to meet both equally with serenity and radiant acquiescence. Yet even from the storm clouds of tragedy, rainbows can appear.” — Alessandra Lapland