{"id":12604,"date":"2020-05-17T21:12:58","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T03:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=12604"},"modified":"2020-05-17T21:15:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T03:15:12","slug":"when-we-long-for-a-life-without-difficulties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/when-we-long-for-a-life-without-difficulties\/","title":{"rendered":"When We Long For A Life Without Difficulties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWhen we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.\u201d\u00a0 -Unknown<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diamonds are made under\npressure\u2026  which is really to say – no\npressure, no diamonds.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No\nDiamonds??!!  Frankly just typing the\nwords \u201cno diamonds\u201d makes me break into a cold sweat\u2026 A world without Diamonds\nis unimaginable!  Because Diamonds make this world a more beautiful\nplace!  They are so beautiful, and\nsparkly, and shiny, and you can\u2019t help but love the way the light dances off of\nthem\u2026they are spectacular!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s important for each of us to remember that diamonds\ndidn\u2019t start as beautiful, sparkly, shiny objects.  They started as carbon\natoms in nature buried 100 miles deep into the earth\u2019s surface.  They are subjected\nto a crazy amount of heat (about 2,200 degree Fahrenheit), and insane amounts\nof pressure (something around 725,000 pounds per square inch!).  Because\nof the heat and pressure the carbon atoms begin to bond to one another in\ngroups of billions and billions in order to form a single one carat crystal.\nThen through violent eruptions they travel extremely fast to the surface of the\nearth, causing them to cool quickly enough to surface as diamonds. But even\nafter enduring all of that their journey still isn\u2019t over yet.  They still have to go through being polished\nand facetted before they finally achieve their full glory.  It is only AFTER they have endured all of\nthose hardships that they finally become those glorious, sparkly, brilliant stones\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each of us are like diamonds in the way we evolve throughout our\nown lives. We start small and we slowly grow through time and daily life\nexperiences. Then we go through major struggles and difficult challenges and\nintense trials, each of which mold us into a stronger and better person. Then\nover time as we endure those trials and overcome our challenges, we surface as\na more mature and refined person. But our journey still isn\u2019t finished yet\u2026we\nstill have to go through polishing and small adjustments in order to reach our\nfull glory.  It\u2019s going through all of that and enduring it well that will\ngive us our ultimate sparkle and shine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we long for a life without difficulties we are selling ourselves short. What we need to be longing for is the faith to see the end beauty of that will result if we endure our difficulties well.\u00a0 The most beautiful things in the world result from the most difficult of circumstances. So when times are tough and we are feeling the pressure, just remember that God is just making you into a perfect diamond, so hang in there, endure it well, and just see that sparkle appear\u2026it\u2019s going to be SPECTACULAR! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book \u201cWhat Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life<\/a>\u201d ) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.\u201d\u00a0 -Unknown Diamonds are made under pressure\u2026  which is really to say – no pressure, no diamonds.  No Diamonds??!!  Frankly just typing the words \u201cno diamonds\u201d makes me break into a cold sweat\u2026 A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168,395,46,540,5048,23583,280,4422,15117,41,67,5050,23584,2074,23587,1198,5049,23585,6304,112,2042,1996,3399,275,23586,19932,866],"class_list":["post-12604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adversity","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-attitude","tag-beauty","tag-carat","tag-carbon","tag-challenges","tag-endurance","tag-endure-it-well","tag-entrepreneur","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-facetted","tag-facing-lifes-challenges","tag-gorgeous","tag-making-adjustments","tag-maturity","tag-polished","tag-reach-our-full-glory","tag-refiners-fire","tag-self-improvement","tag-shine","tag-sparkle","tag-spectacular","tag-stress","tag-we-are-becoming-spectacular","tag-what-awesome-looks-like","tag-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12606,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604\/revisions\/12606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}