Hollywood celebrities tend to appear physically perfect.

But, like many of the fans who follow them, many stars have confessed to struggles with physical maladies — mangled toes, extra fingers, deafness, vestigial tails, and the list goes on. The media never fails to report their struggles with family relationships and mental illnesses as well.

If we take in to account all the ways people’s burdens surface, whether they’re famous or not, it seems everyone has their own “leprosy” that needs offering to Jesus.

If we dig into the biographies of famed musicians, writers, and artists, we’ll see that many produced their most renowned works not in spite of their burdens but because of them. Beethoven went deaf before he wrote his most famous compositions. Vincent Van Gogh and Edvard Munch’s paintings were crafted out of mental illness. Irving Berlin’s beloved song “White Christmas” was born out of his son’s death.

God knows those struggles that we are so eager to be done with often build in us inner strength, widen our perspectives, deepen our gratefulness, and remind us to pull close to Him.

In some way, our struggles are a connection to a greater, more beautiful good. Jesus is always willing to do what’s best for us.