DARKNESS

~Please Listen to my Short Introduction~

What do you do when you feel all of the depressing darkness around you? If you have spent any amount of time on this planet - you have screwed up. Yes, you can intellectually know that you are forgiven. You can know that you are doing your best to be at peace with those around you. Yet, in the midst of knowing those things, those mistakes and failures of the past have a tendency to pop up.

Darkness is a season. Darkness is Winter. It is a time to gather with those you love and feel the warmth of their love. Seasons are seasons, they pass. Knowing that it is just a season can help you know that Spring comes next. No matter how deep the Winter, it will eventually turn to Spring.

I get through darkness by getting up each day and I decide to put one foot in front of the other. Now you can stay in bed and have a royal "pity-party". Or you can get up and get on with your life. That is not an easy thing to do - every emotion in your mind is telling you to pull the blankets over your head. You have to make a conscious DECISION to get up. When you think that darkness will always be around, you have lost the battle. Albert Einstein theorized that there is no such thing as darkness, there is only the absence of light. There isn't enough darkness to extinguish one candle.

I shared my regrets that my kids do not share my faith. Yet, at the same time I am so thankful they are smart, critical thinkers. They have come out OK. They have faced divorce and even the death of their Mother. They are resilient and most importantly, they are young. When I step back and look at my regrets, I realize I am not being patient. I am not trusting the hand of God nor am I trusting my kids.

Darkness is a trickster. It makes you think that it is the only game in town. Darkness may have a hold of you right now. It is saying all is lost, you have failed -- give up! It is trying to mask all of the things in your life that are good. Even at the worst of times there are still things to be thankful. Go back to a time in your life where you actually felt the happiest you have ever felt. Picture that time in your life, see if you can even feel the emotions you felt then. Now focus on that time and only think of that. If you practice, you will start to feel those same happy emotions. When the darkness starts to wash over you, go back to that memory of happiness. One of the things I think about is hearing my kids laughing. There is no better sound to my ears than the laughter of children.

If you are a parent or are in a relationship - you have made mistakes. You also did some great things. Life isn't all or nothing. It is a lifetime that goes through season after season. Yes, Winter is here, but Spring is coming.

I hope you can see the beauty of seasons changing. All of the season we pass through are essential for us to become what God wants us to be.

Peace

~Al