Before I say anything else, I believe that chicken hearts can be found exclusively in Satan's refrigerator. With its lingering metallic taste and that gummy texture that never seems to break down in your mouth, a chicken heart is the perfect size to get lodged in your throat if you try and swallow it before it chooses to be done with you.

I say this after my attempt at enjoying one at a grill last weekend. My table--full of young men who love to eat--decided to dare the whole table to try this daring dish for the first time. They too, thought it had materialized from Satan's kitchen, and perhaps been forgotten and left there for six or seven months.

Wimpy as we are (or perhaps we actually have good taste?), one of them said a statement that has stuck with me since: “The thing that gives us life, looks like death right now.” He meant that although hearts are essential to life, at that moment this specific one looked like it would put us six feet under if we ate it.

It was this statement that inspired me in regards to life.

That comment reinforced that idea that sometimes the things that seem like they're going to kill us are actually strengthening our lives. It made me think of difficult school classes and tough days at work that we all have to deal with. But it made me think that such trials--the ones that make us want to bury our head in our pillows, or our steering wheels, or wherever we are when we have to manage them--are sometimes necessary for our personal development.. 

I'll use my shy little kindergarten self as an example. After being asked to introduce myself, I hid under the desk—on the first day of school—in front of the entire class. The height of my shyness reduced me to trying to bury my head beneath the desk.

And then came high school, where it's a requirement to take speech class and actually speak for a grade. I had a very stressful, nerve-racking semester that year. Particularly because now the desks were too small to hide under.

Yet I missed out on a lot of opportunities because I was afraid of speaking. And even though to this day public speaking still rattles me, and in my panicked mind I believe I may die up there giving a speech, it makes me grow in life and as a person.

So from that night at the grill, it once again reinforced that lesson about how you won't die from most trials in life, and that through those tough days you also become tough.

But my above statement still stands. Chicken hearts are of the devil.