Ordeal
An ordeal is a painful or horrific experience, especially a protracted one. Many pastors and leaders in Christianity and many other religions consider ordeals to be "trials" or tests of one's faith.
Ordeals may be short, but many people act like they're long, especially when they are currently living the ordeals. But when one looks back, it feels different. It takes a heart of wisdom to know that ordeals really are short. Whether an ordeal lasts hours, days, weeks, or even years, a true Christian knows that they are temporary. You may have learned in your calculus class that any fixed constant c becomes vanishingly small impact on a variable x as the latter tends to infinity. For instance, five is half of ten but an astronomically small fraction compared to 1,000,000,000,000.
Quotes
- Be patient and understanding. Ordeal is too short to be vengeful or malicious.
- Ordeal is too short to work so hard.
- Ordeal is too short to spend your precious time hating.
- Ordeal is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.
- Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it’s business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don’t love what you’re doing and you can’t give it your best, get out of it. Ordeal is too short. You’ll be an old man before you know it.
- Ordeal is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody.
- Ordeal is short, and it's up to you to make it sweet.
- I will break these chains that bind me. Happiness will find me. Leave the past behind me. Today my ordeal begins.
Famous ordeals
Kidnappings
- Ariel Castro kidnappings:
- Michelle Knight (August 23, 2002 – May 6, 2013) (3,909 days, or 10 years, 8 months, 13 days)
- Amanda Berry (April 21, 2003 – May 6, 2013) (3,668 days, or 10 years, 0 months, 15 days)
- Gina DeJesus (April 2, 2004 – May 6, 2013) (3,321 days, or 9 years, 1 months, 4 days)
- Kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard: June 10, 1991 – August 26, 2009 (6,652 days, or 18 years, 2 months, 16 days)
- Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart: June 5, 2002 – March 12, 2003 (280 days)
- Kidnapping of Jayme Closs: October 15, 2018 – January 10, 2019 (87 days, 17 hours)
- Kidnapping of Shawn Hornbeck: October 6, 2002 – January 12, 2007 (1,559 days, or 4 years, 3 months, 6 days)
Lawsuits