There Will Always Be Light

The world takes a lot from it. Sometimes it is lethal, ruthless in it's attack. Things are often gone as quickly as they have come. Countries are at war, natural disasters destroy as quick as a crack, and children are swiped away before their time.

 We spend a lot of time being swallowed up in the darkness that is death. hate. addiction. guilt. loss. Every now and then we open ourselves up to it. We surrender our positivity that can at times be made of steel, and we just feel. We don't justify, we don't try and understand. We just succumb to the fact that sometimes, the light is very dim and very far away.  The darkness is vast and wide. And it will always be there, ebbing it's way into the every day news and into our very own lives. The darkness now becomes familiar and personal. It stretches it's spindly fingers long and wide until soon we have to desperately remind ourselves of what is good and just, and light, and happy, and everything that world was meant to be in the first place.

Tonight there are too many brothers without their sisters. There are too many mothers without their children, and far too much emptiness to bear. But we have to.

Because, in a world where someone can be taken from you in a matter of seconds, a ruthless world that doesn't give anyone a chance for a goodbye, it is because of it, after all, that we are even here to experience it in the first place.

And with the responsibility that comes with being given all that we are given, sometimes things have to be taken back. Things have to be devastating. Sometimes trying to find light in the dark 'wonderful unknown' seems to be more than we signed up for and we feel like we will never find happiness. That place somewhere far in the clouds where nothing bad or painful ever happens, it doesn't exist.

"People get lost when they think of happiness as a destination. We're always thinking that someday we'll be happy; when we get that car, that job, or find the person in our lives that fixes everything. But happiness is a mood, and a condition, not a destination. It's like being tired or hungry. It's not permanent. It comes and goes and that's ok. And I feel like if people thought of it that way, they'd find happiness a lot more often." --One Tree Hill

So is it okay to feel darkness when our world is supposed to be full of light? It's okay. Just like it's okay to feel hungry from time to time.

 Five teenagers from my area have passed away in the last few weeks, two of them hitting close to my heart. Death is a constant around us lately. There seems to be more crimes than acts of kindness, and we have grown accustomed to assuming the worst about someone so we are 'better safe than sorry'. We are closing in ourselves, trying to protect our hearts and families from a world that is too far gone. A world we have pegged as 'ruthless'. It is because of this mantra that darkness is becoming harder to fight.

I have always believed that whatever you want, GIVE IT AWAY. Today I want more light. So I'm going to give more away. I want to feel more happiness, so I'm going to make others happier. I want people to stop hurting, and I want their ache to go away... but I don't know what to do for that. And that's what sorrows me most of all.

But... only one redeemer could truly give everything away, and he did. He gave it all away so we could feel whole. He fills up our gaping wounds and emptiness with his love and grace. And that, is the source of all lightness. This light is what makes up the very core of the earth and the core of the human, vindicating our hearts from the darkness that was never meant to belong there. We have to remember that it will never go away no matter how devastating everything surrounding us may feel.

We have to trust that in a world that is filled with the wonderful unknown there will always be overpowering darkness.                            
                                       But somewhere,                       
                                                                    there will also be light.