In this life we all receive our share of bad news, some more than others and some more than it seems one deserves. No matter how bad the bad news and no matter how often it comes our way we have to deal with it. As much as we want or even try to avoid it, there it is staring us in the face.
The point is not to try to deny the bad news nor is it to downplay how bad the bad really is. Doing so only makes matters worse and not better. Yet, the truth is we often try. The further truth us that sometimes the bad news isn’t as bad as we think it is. We are all prone to making the proverbial molehill into a mountain. Nevertheless, the molehill is still a problem we have to address.
What we need to do is find the good news in the bad news. Full disclosure: I am an ardent Joe Biden supporter and totally opposed to Donald Trump. It is not so much about politics as it is about the person. I could go on. My point is that despite the polls saying Biden was going to win in a landslide, I always had my doubts: the memory of 2016 never went away. What I was doing in case my worries proved correct was to try to find some good news in the bad news should it come. It did not for me, but for over 74 million others it did. Now they must try to find some good news in what they have considered bad news, and for some of them, very bad news. I know the feeling. Been there.
No matter who we are we must try to find the good news in what we consider really bad news. At first that is extremely difficult because we can be overwhelmed by the bad news. For me, had the election turned the other way, I would have a very difficult time trying to find the good news. It would not be easy, not in the least, but I would have to try. I would have no choice.
The good news in any bad situation is that we never go through it alone, Family and friends are there to walk with us and who try to help us fine that glimmer, and sometimes it is only a glimmer, of good news that is there somewhere. But it is there as difficult as it sometimes is to see. We simply have to open our eyes to see it as blurred as that vision may be.
At the same time, when our good news may be another’s bad news, what we have to do is be the person who helps find the good news for him. In doing so we must resist the temptation to downplay how he feels, to try to make light of what is going on inside of him. He is hurting and may even be angry. Who isn’t when confronted with bad news, whatever that bad news is?
Bad news is bad news and it is personal, meaning a real person is experiencing it, a person we are called to love and try to understand, support as best we can. When the bad news is ours, we hope the other will do the same for us. We are in this life together.
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