WONDERFULLY HARD

My Old Testament professor, who was also the Hebrew teacher, told us that we need not learn that language if we never intended to be scholars. Since I only wanted to be a simple parish priest, I did not. In hindsight, I wish I had at least learned to read Hebrew, but that’s water over the dam. Thus, when it comes to defining Hebrew words, I have to trust those who know – which is simply an introduction to my reflection.

I learned that the Hebrew word for hard is the same word for wonderful. Imagine that! Something that is hard is also wonderful. It is wonderfully hard. If you think about, it has a ring of truth. If something is easy for us, we usually don’t give it much thought and we probably don’t take as much delight in it as we could or should. We just take whatever pleasure or joy that the task gives for granted and move on.

But if some task is hard, whatever the task, we have to concentrate on what we are doing simply because the task at hand is indeed hard, difficult. It takes serious attention if we want to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. Otherwise, we will make a mess of what we are doing and will probably never complete the task. We know this to be true because we have learned the hard way.

Yet, when we have given it our all, when we have been fully physically and mentally present at the task at hand and done what needed to be done, we came away with a wonderful feeling of accomplishment even if we are bone tired and exhausted from our efforts. We also know this is true because we have learned from our experiences that it is the truth.

When something is wonderfully hard, there is an inner peace and enjoyment that is difficult if not impossible to put into words; nor do we have the need to do so. Why? Because the experience and the effort was and always will be very personal. Yes, others may and probably will have benefited from our efforts, and that is one of the driving forces for our actions. But we did not set out to do what we did simply because we were looking for some personal satisfaction. We did what we did because, in our eyes, it had to be done.

It is only when we have completed the task at hand that we can sit back and reflect. What we learn is that we accomplished what we did, as hard and as difficult as it was, because of the grace of God; the grace that put us in the position to be able to do what needed to be done; the grace and strength to accomplish the deed; the grace to make the effort when so much of us wanted to walk away and let another take up the difficult task.

We truly learn the hard way. We learn that the hard way is probably the only way to learn and that is why we need the grace of God to do what needs to be done and why we can say to ourselves afterwards, “That was a wonderfully hard experience!”