When you come across a situation where a difficult choice has to be made, do you choose the harder route or the easier one? I would be more inclined to say that most of us, including me, would choose the latter. I used to think that what we really want, and sometimes need, are easy lives, and if we can’t have an easy carefree life, then we can at least become deep, grounded people who grow through change and heartbreak. But, I don’t know of anyone who has had an easy life in all their different seasons. Everyone I know got their heart broken sometime, by something or someone. The question is not, “Will my life be easy or will my heart break?” But rather, “When my heart breaks, will I choose to grow?”

It’s easy to give up under the weight of what we’re carrying. It seems that sometimes that is the only possible choice. But there’s always, always, always, another choice. Sometimes in the moments of the most burning pain, we think we don’t have a choice. But we do. It’s in those moments that we make the most important choice: grow or give up.

I’ve come to find that transformation is waiting for us just beyond that choice. We might not believe it at first, but God can make something beautiful out of heartbreak. It’s your invitation to grow, as unwelcome as it may be. Something beautiful can blossom out of wreckage.

That beauty can easily be stunted by selfishness. We are taking the road less traveled, but are we growing in the process? When you’re totally honest about your pain, what’s at the center? Could it be that you’re not getting what you want? You are hit with the same annoyance, the same problem, the same situation over and over again.

You can learn from it the first time, or you’ll find that same situation or same kind of person or same opportunity staring you in the face over and over again. You’ll wonder at the coincidence for a while. What are the chances that I have to keep working with people like this? What are the chances that my husband and I keep having the same fight over and over? What are the chances that so many different people would hurt my feelings in just the same way?

And there it is, an opportunity to grow, to transcend and transform, to break that terrible pattern. When we pay attention and when we grow, we become freer, more flexible, more faithful, more able to ask for help. We become less fearful, more able, more comfortable with the idea of life as a beautiful mess. You want me to say that when you grow, finally, all the changes will stop, but they don’t. There will always be another one, another opportunity to grow, to take the step in the right direction.

What will you choose today? Will you choose to grow or take the easy way?