Have you ever faced adversity?  That’s a rhetorical question.  As soon as we’re born and the doctor slaps our bottom to make sure we’re breathing, and we cry, we’ve faced adversity!

While most of us would prefer to avoid it, the sayings “life happens”, or “stuff happens”, implies adversity happens.  Some of us have mastered the means of making adversity work for us– like the guy we met at the “Y”, wearing a T-shirt that said “Pain is just weakness leaving our body!”

That sounds good in theory, but outside of physical exercise, we still need to figure out how to make adversity work for us, so we don’t feel miserable about it.

Here’s one foolproof way:  Go through it together with at least one other person.

Why?  Because experience has proven that facing any kind of adversity together produces bonding.  And bonding produces a happier, more fulfilled, life.  People with strong family/friend/team relationships feel more contentment, receive support they need, and have a sense of significance knowing they matter to someone.

It also makes close friends out of people who may not associate otherwise.

For example, “old army/navy/air-force/marine buddies”.  People who’ve fought together against a common enemy shooting at them.  At that point, no one cares who was the mayor, the garbage man, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, or anything else in civilian life.  They just care about how well they can protect each other.

Later, when they return home, they’ll recount the war stories.  Each time they relive it all emotionally and verbally, they’ll value those buddies even more. And they’ll have reunions, making them all heroes again.

Most of us won’t serve in the military, but we’ll have chances to face adversity together.  When a natural disaster strikes our area.  When our family goes through financial hardship or the grief of losing a loved one.  When our group experiences persecution because of our faith.  When our teacher/professor grades unfairly.  When…

At that point, we have a choice.  We can band and bond together, or we can let the adversity divide and isolate us.  There’s a reason for the expression “divide and conquer”.  If we push each other away and try to face it by ourselves, that adversity will overwhelm us, bring us down, and likely destroy us.

If we face it together, we’ll overcome what would otherwise ruin our lives, come out stronger, and enjoy the benefits of bonding.  (Eccles. 4:9-12)

That’s why I still smile, remembering our Girl Scout cycling trip I joined, going into the 8th grade!  Eighteen of us, including three leaders took off on a 400-mile journey from the Chicago area to northern Wisconsin.  Every road took us uphill and against the wind.  Defying Newton’s 3rd law of motion, what and who went up never came down!  Tired, spent, and discovering that girls do sweat, we’d finally stop and camp each night after about 50 miles of buffeting our bodies together.

After three days of this, we all noticed something.  Scouts who sweat together stick together—figuratively as well as literally!  The “lean machine” athletes in front started encouraging the weaker “sisters” in the back.  Some, like me, who started off weaker, near the back, got inspired to pump harder and ended up in front.  By the end of the first week, we had all become “muscle buddies”, regardless of the amount of muscle we’d started with!

We laughed together, groaned together, grew emotionally and socially as well as physically together, and enjoyed the ride together—even the hard parts!  For the next few years, all through high-school, we held reunions from all over the suburbs just so we could see each other and relive the adventure together again.  Some had gone on to be intellectual nerds, others cheerleaders, others drama divas, others “jockettes”—but in those reunions, we were “Team Scouts” again.

The ride gets easier and the battles are won when we’re in it together.