This Too Shall Pass: Comforting Words for Tough Times
That sounds so EASY when I write that sentence! In all honesty it’s been a very crazy year because of it. Anyone who has bought and sold a home knows all the precarious ups and downs that can (and will) happen. It begins with total strangers traipsing though your home with the possible intention of buying it, to living with boxes of your stuff (do we really need this much?!) to finally moving and settling in.
Here I am at the other end of it. We are safe and sound in our new place. It’s lovely. I’m so relieved to finally be settled! I’m still unpacking, but all is good. What got me through the past many months of upheaval are four simple words.
“This too shall pass.”
I hear that phrase a lot from my intuitive reading clients. People often call me when they’re in their own particular blend of change, transition and seeking next steps and insight.
“This too shall pass.” It implies — I’m in a temporary situation. It will end. Better days are around the corner. Tough times happen and I’m in one of them now, but it will change. Good things are yet to come. It feels good even to say the phase!
It got me thinking about the origins of this quote. The most popular is the one that comes from the biblical King Solomon. He was known for his wisdom, his wealth and his writings. He became ruler in approximately 967 B.C. and his kingdom extended from the Euphrates River in the north, to Egypt in the south. His crowning achievement was the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Almost all knowledge of him is derived from the biblical books of Kings I and Chronicles II.
It was said that King Solomon was going through a very difficult time and asked his jewelers to make him a ring he saw in a dream. On the ring he saw these words that gave him great comfort — “Gam ze ya-ah-vor” which are the Hebrew words for, you guessed it, “This too shall pass.”
The sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, also used the phrase in a speech he gave in 1859. “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction.”
Lincoln successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, saving the Union and ending slavery. By all accounts he was a deeply sensitive man and one can only imagine the immense despair he must have felt sending tens of thousands of soldiers into battle. To keep himself calm and focused he used this phrase throughout his term as president. He reminded himself that whatever was happening was temporary. It too, would pass.
So, if you’re going through a tough time in life, keep going! Remember, this too shall pass.
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