Create Joy. Honor the Struggle.

Hi Exo buddies,

Hope everyone is doing well. It’s been a challenging five months for me working hard through therapy from my car accident in December and starting a new job as well. Hard to believe this much time has passed. Because of my recovery, it’s taken me awhile to get back to the blog & insta and I will probably be writing a little more sparingly than I have in previous years, but today I wanted to share a little of what’s been on my heart.

As humans, we seek joy. We pursue happiness. We avoid hardships. But sometimes, life knocks us down and it can feel like joy leaves us. How do we find it again? How do we embrace our struggles but rise above them?

What I’ve learned through life is that we go through seasons where joy is abundant; we feel good, our family is healthy, we are chasing our dreams, life is going well, the sun is shining. In these times, it feels like joy comes easily, but then in other seasons sickness happens, accidents occur, injuries, hardships… in these times, we can feel like joy is lost and we are alone without a roadmap on how to get back. In these seasons of darkness, it’s up to us to find the joy and not wait for it to show up. We have to create it and it starts with accepting what is in front of us. We must honor our struggles and not hate them. For me, a big part of this is tapping into faith. I am believer that everything happens for a reason and though circumstances come that we may not understand or willingly want, nothing happens without the Father knowing. So if this is the season He has me in, I will lean into that and find joy where He has me. It’s not always easy… in fact it can be painful, but trusting God in the dark is where we find our faith and where we learn to lean on Him.

Last year, I felt on top of the world. Running in races, competing in events across the US, meeting Exo buddies, doing adventures… it was pretty ExoSymplyAmazing to say the least – probably one of the best years of my life… so much JOY. And then I was hit by a car, on the way back from a Dallas trip in December, and life got really hard again. Right when I thought “Wow, life is pretty #ExoSymplyAmazing nothing can stop me now“… it did. My world crashed. And it’s been hard, but you know what? I’m here to tell you, you can get through it. You can find joy again in any situation you face, but you must learn to honor the struggle. Embrace the hardship, don’t hate it. Lean into the Spirit, keep the faith.

In many ways I think life is like getting a haircut. Sometimes you get one you really love and then sometimes you get one and think OMG… What am I going to do? How am I going to get through the next several months with this? Just like a bad haircut, there are times in life when you wish circumstances were different. I wish I hadn’t played in that soccer game where I hurt my ankle. I wish I hadn’t been in a car accident. But just like we have to find a way to embrace a bad haircut, we have to find a way to do that with our lives too. We have to change the way we see our circumstances (our bad haircuts) and realize that in time things will get better, but we have to make a conscious choice to believe that and act on it. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do about it. Let’s face it, we’re going to get a lot of haircuts in life – some we will like and some we won’t. Life is the same way. Some things we are going to like and some we won’t. But we can’t stop getting haircuts just because we had a bad one or even several bad ones. The same goes for life, we have to keep stepping out every day. We have to create joy in the hard times and honor the bad haircuts of life, not hate them. For hating them does nothing but steal our joy. So whatever you are facing today – know that you can get through it, but it’s a choice.

Hurting my ankle in a soccer game in 2011 changed my life forever. Life looked bleak (pretty bad haircut) but I made a choice to create joy and honor the struggle. In 2013, I received the ExoSym device and it’s been a pretty ExoSymplyAmazing ride. If I had given up, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And just like now, through this car accident (another unfortunate haircut), I will not give up. I will create joy, honor the struggle and keep the faith.

My hope for you today is that you choose to embrace every bad haircut in life by changing the way you see it. ❤ NEVER GIVE UP.

#beYOU #beAMAZING #ExoSymplyAmazing

Bring the joy, don’t wait for it.

Honor the struggle, don’t hate it.

-Brandon Burchard