A Reason.

I learned that in the hardest times, we learn the biggest lessons. Lessons to grow us into stronger people. That it doesn’t matter what we’ve done, but what we’ll do. And to choose to look beyond the past is sometimes the only way to move on and to keep going. It’s the moments when you want to give up that you realize giving up would only make you a failure. I’m convinced it is then that the start of change begins. Change is never a bad thing when we refuse to allow the past to play a part in it.

I feel like my eyes were opened in more ways than one. Because for a while I was confused and had no idea what was happening in my life. I shut out what I didn’t want to hear, and let in what I did. But what I didn’t want to hear was the exact thing I needed to hear. It was because of those things that I could truly learn what God was doing in my life. I’d never understand if I never bothered to listen. But I took that step, I had that courage, and I let it give me confidence.

I never realized that I struggled with fear until I wrote the words “I’m scared.” I found myself feeling that way a lot. But yet I had no reason to be scared. I just let myself feel that way. I couldn’t trust myself. No one should. How could I know the answers? What do I live off of? How could I know what’s right in my life? How could anyone? Surely there was something that could guide us—someone! Would we be left with absolutely nothing? Could we honestly trust yet another mind that was just like ours? Could every book in the library hold truth? If I can’t trust myself, how can I trust yet another human being?

We couldn’t have been left here with nothing to show us a way out. There has to be something much greater that holds every single answer we seek. There has to be a reason as to why people come and go. Why babies are born, and why people pass away. What kind of cycle is that if there is no purpose? We fight so many battles, we struggle with so many fears, so much pain—there’s a reason, there has to be!

If there’s a purpose, then there is a way out. When we curl up in a little ball in the darkness of a tiny room, crying until the tears stop coming, holding our heart, we can’t possibly be alone. As we sit there, we wonder, “Why do I feel this way?” And yet we do know. Sometimes the answer only comes when we need it most. We shouldn’t be scared as to what it is. There’s a divine intention behind everything. That is something that’ll give us purpose.

I used to tell myself, “Sometimes the answer is staring you in the face.” Because I said that, it got me thinking. Perhaps I was looking way too far ahead. I wanted one thing because I thought that it’d make me happy. But what if that allowed me to miss out on what I already did have? Maybe my dreams were the mere existence of my reality. Maybe I only dreamed it because I had it already, and yet had no idea. I wanted more, I wanted something else, and yet I had it. And until I realized I had it, I couldn’t embrace it yet.

When I know what’s there, the exact thing in front of me, I should hold onto it. I could never get what I want because it’s not what I need. And until I learn to want what I need, I shall never want anything beyond what I have.

Maybe that’s the lesson I needed to learn.
Maybe it’s the lesson we all need to learn.