November 2025

November Thought of the Month

"When wealth is lost, nothing is lost. When health is lost, something is lost. When character is lost, all is lost."

~ Reverend Billy Graham

Imagine a selection of glass bottles. They all look fine. But add hot water and that stress puts pressure on invisible cracks, causing some to shatter. Adversity is the hot water that exposes a person's true character. Our country is facing its biggest test of national and personal character in generations. With unemployment on the rise, housing increasingly beyond family budgets, hospitals closing, health insurance premiums becoming unaffordable, and the costs of the essentials people need to live rising every day, the stress signs are everywhere.

Spend a few minutes on social media and you will witness the struggles and pain that isn't deep enough to make the national news yet. And like fossils exposed on a dig, you will also see aspects of people's character that they otherwise would never show. We are seeing a side of our government policies that rarely leaves the shadows. So the question is, what do we do about it?

It's our job to shore up our own characters. We can't change other people. No matter how logical the argument, if they don't want to hear it, they won't. We must work on our own internal foundations and strengths to persevere through the times that are coming. We can do that through our faith, our life philosophies, our personal convictions.

Then we must stand on our shored up foundations. Once we know the convictions we're willing to hold our ground on, we can mentally and physically prepare to face whatever comes to challenge us on them. Without that preparation, it is much easier for our characters to be overwhelmed when adversity strikes.

Good character lost can be the death knell of a society, but that fate is not inevitable. The bulwarks against the negative influences threatening us grow stronger when more people develop and stand on quality character. And that's something each and every one of us can choose to do.

[Thought and image design by Elaine C. Oldham]