When you’re in the middle of a storm… whether it’s an illness, a bad relationship or financial hardship… it can sometimes feel like you will never get out of it.  The darkness can seem so all-consuming that you wonder if you’ll ever see the light again.  It’s a trick that our brain plays on us as we become so used to the sadness, the anxiety and the fear.  It becomes our new “normal” and we forget there ever was another way to live.

The good news is that’s not the truth.  You WILL get out of the storm and you WILL see light again on the other side.

In fact, God promises great blessings to those that stay faithful and persevere through the hard times…

“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those that love him.”  -James 1:12

When I was in the middle of a very difficult period in my life, I was barely getting through the day.  I went through all the motions each day but emotionally, I was totally spent.  I felt like a zombie walking through my daily life.  Surviving more than actually living.  It seemed like things would never be different and I would never see an end to the storms that were surrounding me.

Fast forward to a couple years later… when I was out running errands on a regular day and stopped at a traffic light in the neighborhood I had lived in during the storm.  Suddenly, I realized I was singing along to the radio.  This was not a strange occurrence.  I love music and sing all the time – in the car, in the shower, whenever the mood strikes me.

BUT for quite awhile during that difficult period of my life, I hadn’t sung in the car.

It wasn’t that I made a conscious decision not to.  I just had lost the joy to do so.  And I hadn’t even realized it.

Yet, here I was… having come out the other side of the storm… sitting at a traffic light singing (off-key, mind you) my heart out.  That realization made me smile and almost wish I could’ve told that sad, scared version of myself that had sat at that same light a year or so earlier, that it WOULD be okay.

For, as they say… THIS TOO SHALL PASS.