# Chain: Challenges As Blessings > *Every difficulty is a blessing that strengthens the soul* **The argument it traces:** Hardship, whatever its source, is redeemed into soul-growth by God's design → every struggle, test, and challenge brings insights and lessons that strengthen the soul → the strengthened soul becomes a more powerful channel of Love → so the challenge is met with trust rather than resentment **3** messages · **11** supporting · complete --- ## Foundation ### 2016-08-11 - [[2016-08-11 Your Obstacles Strengthen You in the Light|Your Obstacles Strengthen You in the Light]] The anchor, a message that builds WHY hardship strengthens. Mechanism: "each time you overcome an obstacle, each time a lesson is learned, each time you turn your pain into joy you become stronger... you gain more wisdom as you come to understand more fully what it is that the world is made of, the world of man, its complexities, its error, its fears and its lack of love." Stake: "For without knowledge of these things, without the ability to navigate through these issues you will not be an effective instrument of change in the world." Failure mode: "You will be weakened, weakened because rather than humbly face what is set before you, you withdraw or you become angry or you do not express love in some way." Closest member [[2019-02-22 Life Challenges Strengthen the Soul, Creating More Powerful Channels of Love|2019-02-22-af-keea-atta-kem]] (roster witness); new facet: what the strengthening consists of, competence in the world's conditions, and why it is required, an instrument ignorant of them cannot serve. ## Elaboration ### 2016-10-24 - [[2016-10-24 Consider Your Progress|Consider Your Progress]] **(anchor)** The causal direction reversed, against a nearly identical sentence frame. The Foundation, [[2016-08-11 Your Obstacles Strengthen You in the Light|2016-08-11-af-alec-gaunt]], builds why hardship strengthens: "each time you overcome an obstacle, each time a lesson is learned, each time you turn your pain into joy you become stronger." Confucius uses the same construction to say something else: "each time that you surmount a barrier, that you overcome a fear, that you change your attitude to one that is more loving and forgiving you express the change that is happening within your souls. You allow your souls greater expression in your lives." In the Foundation the overcoming produces the strengthening; here the overcoming is evidence of a strengthening already under way in the soul, which makes the same events diagnostic rather than causal, and joins this thread to the [[Chains/Incremental Journey|Incremental Journey]] role above, since that is precisely what the backward look is reading. A tension recorded and not resolved: Reframe is the better role if the causal direction is genuinely reversed rather than loosely worded, and Elaboration is taken as the more modest of the two. Worth settling before the thread is built, since the Foundation is its presumptive anchor, and an anchor saying challenges strengthen you sits awkwardly beside a member saying they only show you what already changed. ### 2019-02-22 - [[2019-02-22 Life Challenges Strengthen the Soul, Creating More Powerful Channels of Love|Life Challenges Strengthen the Soul, Creating More Powerful Channels of Love]] A warm, clear statement of the thread's claim ("every challenge is a blessing bringing you to greater light, to deeper joy") rather than a developed argument for it. --- ## Also touches on this *These messages restate or echo the idea rather than carry it forward, so they sit alongside the thread rather than in it.* - **2015-03-24** [[2015-03-24 There Is Fate and Yet There Is No Fate|There Is Fate and Yet There Is No Fate]] (sighting) - "Every day brings its challenges and its opportunities and every day that you overcome that which would hold you back into the human condition, we rejoice." - **2015-03-27** [[2015-03-27 Every Human Soul Is Damaged by the Earth Condition|Every Human Soul Is Damaged by the Earth Condition]] (witness) - The daily-test claim, "Every day brings a new test and a new reward and a new opportunity to grow and expand in this Love," and "With each test you will let go of your fears and your deep pain." Stated rather than argued, so witness level. - **2015-06-15** [[2015-06-15 Walk in the Light and Be the Beacon of Light despite the Daily Challenges|Walk in the Light and Be the Beacon of Light despite the Daily Challenges]] (witness) - The daily test as the way forward, "It is a testing time for each one of you... Each day is a challenge and a test. Each day you move a little further along in your understanding and your faith," with the tests located in small things, "your tests lie in these small situations within your life that aggravate and compel you off this Path of Light." Given as encouragement rather than argued. - **2015-11-02** [[2015-11-02 Free Will Governs Your Path|Free Will Governs Your Path]] (witness) - The lessons framing, "lessons to be learned... This is the challenge of life," with the painful choices held inside a larger care, "we know that God will draw you back again into the Light soon enough." Stated rather than argued. - **2016-11-29** [[2016-11-29 Put Aside the Goals and Ambitions of Your Mind|Put Aside the Goals and Ambitions of Your Mind]] (witness) - "once you face them you become stronger, and once you overcome them you will have more confidence, an ability to see the circumstance, the situation from a different perspective." The turning away that the Foundation names as the failure is here too, "you in your defensiveness to try to ease your way through life, you turn away from the challenge to love." - **2017-01-25** [[2017-01-25 Building a Foundation of Spiritual Growth and Development|Building a Foundation of Spiritual Growth and Development]] (considered and set aside) - God's presence carries a soul through every challenge, "whether it be joyful or sad, difficult, or fulfilling, God will be there," but nothing here says hardship strengthens the soul. - **2017-03-27** [[2017-03-27 Release Self-Will and Embrace the Perfect Will of God|Release Self-Will and Embrace the Perfect Will of God]] (sighting) - Struggle as part of the passage from self-will to God's Will, "It does not come easily. It does not come without a struggle," with progress marked by meeting it, "upon each success and shift and healing within, you will know joy and a true awakening." The struggle belongs to the transition rather than strengthening the soul as such. - **2018-05-12** [[2018-05-12 Law of Compensation - Natural Compared with the Divine Path|Law of Compensation: Natural Compared with the Divine Path]] (sighting) - "though at times this journey may have its struggles and difficulties and challenges, the rewards that you reap... are immense, are immeasurable, are wondrous indeed." The thread's claim in its closing-reassurance form; asserted. - **2018-07-14** [[2018-07-14 Soul Expiation Through Pursuit of Truth, Release of Error|Soul Expiation Through Pursuit of Truth, Release of Error]] (witness) - The struggles as what strengthens, "the struggles that you have had, the tests that have been difficult. Yet, these things have carried you forward, strengthened you, built wisdom within you and this deep compassion for yourself and for others." - **2018-08-06** [[2018-08-06 Trust in the Wisdom of the Soul|Trust in the Wisdom of the Soul]] (sighting) - "Life is a test. It tests the strong and it tests the weak. Each must struggle in their own way," with the struggle met by turning to God. The message does not say the testing strengthens the soul or is a blessing, so it touches the thread's territory without stating its principle. - **2019-02-22** [[2019-02-22 Life Challenges Strengthen the Soul, Creating More Powerful Channels of Love|Life Challenges Strengthen the Soul, Creating More Powerful Channels of Love]] (build) - Keea Atta Kem states the teaching warmly and clearly, "all conspire to bring many insights and lessons, strengthening your soul... Every struggle, every opportunity, every challenge is a blessing bringing you to greater light, to deeper joy", as encouragement rather than as an argument that develops it. The same principle is stated at [[2015-11-02 Free Will Governs Your Path|2015-11-02-af-augustine]] ("lessons to be learned... This is the challenge of life") and [[2016-02-29 You Struggle but You Do Make Progress|2016-02-29-af-confucius]]; [[2016-08-11 Your Obstacles Strengthen You in the Light|2016-08-11-af-alec-gaunt]] is the message that builds it into an argument. The wording is also close to the channel-of-love and planting-seeds language of [[2016-01-09 You Are Gardeners in God's Beautiful Garden|2016-01-09-af-augustine]] (the gardeners), though it adds nothing to that thread.