Hard Times But Not Hard Times

I avoid trials and tribulation as much as possible. I do not like hard times. I do not like feeling bad. I do not like sadness, loneliness, or failure. I do not like death, famine or pain. I do everything possible to avoid these things because I really do not enjoy the experience. I do not enjoy watching others experience hard times either. But in reflection I look at my life and realize that experiencing these things (though at the time I hated them)I have realized that the hard times have been the critical in my own personal development.

I thought I would write about a one "hard time" that made a difference in my life.
As a boy, I had a very happy childhood. I had/have excellent parents and a good family. At one point in my childhood we fell on hard times. My dad lost his job with a good company and had to resort to Driving truck all night, pulling weeds and recycling freight pallets during the day. It took about 20 hours out of his day to work so that my mom could stay home and raise us and to put food in the mouths of four hungry boys. My dad didn't believe in handouts so he worked. He was gone a lot. My Poor mother was taxed with possibly a harder responsibility of keeping the peace of four fighting boys. I worried a lot during those times.
I remember one day my older brother and I had 75 cents and we decided to walk to the KOA store by our house to get a treat. We decided to buy two pixie sticks and a flavored Club Soda (we had never had one) to share. I remember walking back to our house laughing and having a good time. We stopped at the ditch behind our house to drink the Club soda and it was terrible. At that moment we both realized that we had wasted 50 cents of needed money. My brother and I talked about how we really shouldn't be wasting money while our dad was working so hard for it. We felt horrible over 50 cents. We played the rest of the day, but it was heavy on my mind. Later that night at a family home evening our family gathered around the piano for a song (none of us could sing very well) and my older brother was playing "the Money Song" as graceful as he could, while we sang along. We sang as a family:

Money can't buy everything
Money will not make you a king
Money will not buy success
Money cant buy happiness.

But one thing that I am sure
Money cannot make you poor
Money will not make you sad
Money cant be all that bad.

We laughed as we sang it over and over again. Later that night we knelt down together as a family and prayed. I don't remember the prayer, but I remember a feeling of peace that came over me. A feeling that told me that everything was going to be OK.
That day I learned something. I learned that money wasn't our source of happiness and it never would be.

In all of my worries, one dwarfed them all. I worried every night as my dad left to drive truck at night that he wouldn't come home. I knew how much he worked during the day, and I knew how little he slept. I knew I couldn't handle the loss of my Dad. Every night, I knelt down by my bed and prayed that my Dad would make it home safe. It wasn't a light hurry and get done prayer. It was sincere, and with all of my heart. I never missed a night. I couldn't miss a night.
My Dad came home every morning.
I learned the most important lesson of all through that hard time. I learned that somewhere, there was a loving Father that loved me, and as insignificant as I was, he listened, he listened every night. I learned that he had the power to take care of my loving Father.
I wouldn't trade that lesson for anything in the world.

Hard times can be our best times if we know where to turn. If we don't turn the right direction then they are just hard times.