Keeping the Light On

Think about what your life looks like right now in this hour. Are you happy, grieving, complacent, floating, on track or optimistic? All of the emotions that have wrapped themselves in the fabric of your daily life feel fresh and easily noted. Think about your life a year ago. Can you pinpoint specific emotions that you were feeling at the time? Can you even remember exactly what was happening one year ago? I don’t mean just a general “I was in school” or “I was starting keto”. I mean can you remember a single raw emotion that brought itself into your daily routine? If you can, I feel that it’s safe to assume that whether it was positive or negative, the emotion that you can pick out was a strong one. Something important happened to you and you remember how it felt. Other than situations like that, it can be very difficult to really remember our emotional state from one year ago.

            All of that to say, I really don’t know where I was last year. I know that I was planning my wedding, battling my senior year, and looking forward to a new and ‘better’ position at a job I loved. I was excited and looking forward to the future and everything that it held for me. I cannot pinpoint a single emotion for that time because I was so scattered. If I think back about two or more weeks my emotions seem almost too fresh.

            For a little bit of back-story, I have only ever had one job. If you know me, you know that it was the perfect job for me. I loved it. I started that job when I was in a very dark place in my personal life. I was lonely and scared of the future. This job gave me friends and hope. I grew up in a tiny box with some of the most incredible people to share the journey with. I went through a break up, the entirety of college, a new relationship, a wedding, and everything that happened in between while I worked my way up in that building. That building was my second home and those people were my second family. I cannot even express the importance and impact that my first job had on me as a person.

            Up until recently, this job was my place. I loved being there. We all know that things change and this little building was no different. The crew changed, attitudes changed, and the environment changed. A younger crew brought with them some extra drama. A personal life event made work steadily become more hostile. Tired of trying to defend myself so constantly, I began looking for another job, knowing that I wanted to leave before the job became something bitter to me. Long story short, I did not succeed. However, God was watching me and gave me an incredible new job just as my current one became unbearable.

            Just to clarify before I go on, I am doing just fine. I am happy and excited about everything that is coming my way. Back to my original point: everything that has happened recently was crushing me. I felt myself slipping into a dark place and I was struggling to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Just as it was all falling apart and I was crumbling, the tunnel opened and all I can see is light.

All of this to say that God has shown me again and again that even when I feel myself sinking, He is planning ahead and preparing everything(including me). I know that no matter how dark I feel, as long as I keep moving forward I will find the light again. This is why no matter what my circumstances are, I will pull myself out of bed. Even if my feet are dragging, my head is fuzzy, or I feel numb. Even if I am full of joy, full of energy, and succeeding, I will fall to my knees and ask my Father to help me through the day. Even if the day before me seems easy and exciting, I do not want to go through it without acknowledging that I am not going through it alone. I have the blessing of knowing that I never have to go through this life on my own. If I am surrounded by darkness, it is the Light inside of me that will get me through. I also know that when I look back a year from now, even if I remember my sadness it will not cut the way that it did so recently. Time can seem slow, but it does heal. If the darkness is around you right now, I am thinking of you and I know that even though it may not feel like it, it will get better. I could not tell you about a dark time in my life that never got better in the end, and I pray you will never be able to either.