I don’t want to simply pass the time during this shutdown. May Netflix and chill never pour forth from my lips. May it forever remain anathema. No, I’ve set my sights on emerging from this season better than when it first began.

I want to help you do the same as well. Join me on my quest for self-improvement by reading a book that’s quite timely for us now–Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. It tells the story of David’s life and puts the lessons he learned through intense suffering on a shelf we can reach.

Darkness usually appears to crawl at a consistent steady pace. Now and then, however, its movements accelerate. Swiftly it sweeps across the land–leaving destruction in its wake. The shutdown of vast swaths of the world’s economy brings the worst within our society to the surface. Crime rates rise as unemployment figures skyrocket. Other things like selfishness, pride, fear, anxiety, distrust, and anger also bubble to the surface.

Hardship reveals more than it forms. It peels away the crafted veneer we show the world, leaving us exposed. Day by day, moment by moment, hard times eat away at the face we show the world. In the end, they leave you baring all before strangers and friends alike.

You need not fear this revealing. Fear not. More than anything else hardship teaches you about yourself. It shows you exactly who you are. It leaves you nowhere to hide. Hardship forces you to take stock of your inward life and face up to what you see.

My grandmother would be 90 today. Unfortunately, she passed a few days shy of this milestone. I attempted to read the following reflections at her memorial service this past week, but couldn’t stay on script or keep it together well enough to honor her as I wanted. Below are the words I wrote soon after learning of her death.

Few things generate deep satisfaction as reading something well written. Better still is when that something communicates deep abiding life altering truth.

Flowery language is usually a reflection of poor writing. Beautiful writing is not always an exercise in excess though. When done well, the images it brings to mind and the way it sounds in the ear out way the negatives typically associated with ornate language.