Navigating dark times
3 Things to Remember When All You See is Darkness
You must hold hands and dance with it
1. Darkness Comes But it Doesn’t Last Forever
My father had a very tough childhood. A childhood story that always fascinates me.
My father suffered a disease that affected his leg so badly; he had trouble going from one place to the other. Doctors couldn’t heal him and those that could, were too expensive for his mother to afford. He lived with this condition for a while and people looked down on him. Because of this condition, my father didn’t have a normal childhood, and he missed out on many things.
He didn’t want to miss out on school.
His father wasn’t around, and his mother did everything she could to give him a great head start in life. But she died suddenly.
My father always says how it was the scariest day of his life. He was all alone in a world where no one saw him for who he really was.
My father was the greatest man I know, and people couldn't see it.
He had no family who was willing to take him in. He had to take care of himself, and he swore he would. He swore he would do great things, no matter the darkness he was navigating.
A good man found him and saw who he really was. He took him in and sent him to school. My father was brilliant. He graduated with flying colors.
When it was time to get a job, the job he desperately wanted required him to pay for training to get started.
Pay for training?
My poor dad couldn’t afford it. He was broken-hearted. He tried to do menial jobs to make the money, but it wasn’t paying much and time was running out for him.
He cried for a miracle.
One day as he was running around trying to figure his situation out, he said he had an urge to go to a certain place to look for something. He had no idea what, but he listened to his intuition.
When he got there, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He walked around aimlessly and he had a feeling to look on the ground.
What he saw laying there changed the course of his life. There was a bundle of money carefully wrapped laying there waiting for him to pick up. He stood there and watched others walk past it as if they couldn’t see the money laying there. They couldn't see it.
Right then, he said he immediately knew where the money was from. An angel was looking out for him. An angel was helping him.
He knew this angel was his mother because he felt her presence there and earlier that day; he felt sad and missed his mother dearly. His mother was still taking care of him.
He picked his money up, went straight to the job, paid, and began his training the next day. He succeeded beyond expectation and was made manager of the company where he worked for many years, moving up the company ladder every year.
My poor father became very wealthy. He paid the best doctor there was at the time to treat his leg properly. He healed. Even though it left a scar, it always served as a reminder of what he survived. She got married to a gorgeous woman, my mother. He built a house big enough for him, his wife, and 7 kids to live in, and there was more than enough space left to rent out, which generated passive income for him.
My father never had to struggle a single day after that day. He lived a glorious life until he passed away recently at 82 after a life well-lived.
My father’s story is the story I always revisit when I find myself in darkness. It reminds me that darkness serves a purpose and the light always returns, no matter how long it takes.
Despite all of my father’s struggles, he never gave up. If he had given up, I wouldn’t be here today telling his story.
2. Darkness Comes to Lead You to the Light
When life happens, it’s easy to think it’s all such a mess. All you see is the struggle and the failed attempts. But what if the darkness comes to prepare you for something extraordinary? What if through the disappointment is how you realize just how powerful you are?
What if? You might ask, “What power? I feel powerless and out of control.”
Albert Einstein didn’t speak at all for the first three years of his life. His teachers assumed he was lazy because he was always distracted by abstract concepts. Despite the lack of confidence people showed towards him, he rose above such negativity and achieved the great things that the whole world talks about. To the world now, Einstein is a genius.
When Jim Carrey was fifteen, he dropped out of school to support his family. They lived in a van. Despite these challenges, Carrey continued to follow his dream of becoming a comedian. And now everybody knows his name, and he makes many people laugh to this day.
Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before he invented the light bulb. Literally. He tried a thousand times. That's insane! The average person would have given up after failing that many times. But not Edison. He tried a thousand times until he succeeded.
Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was rejected by thirty different publishers. Thirty. That’s enough to make anybody quit! Well, he did. He threw the novel in the trash. His wife knew he could do it, so she pulled it out of the trash and pushed him to finish it. He finished it. King’s books have now sold over 350 million copies, and Carrie has become a classic novel with many films and TV adaptations.
Walt Disney was fired from his first job at the Kansas City Star after his newspaper editor told him he didn’t have enough imagination or creativity. He said Disney didn't have enough imagination! How absurd! He became bankrupt and moved to California to produce cartoons, and that’s when his career took off. Now, who doesn't know about Disney and its amazing movies?
I can’t leave out Oprah Winfrey, who had a very tough life. She was constantly molested and ran away from home at the age of 14. She later gave birth to a child who died. She struggled in many other aspects of her life, but the woman did not fold and now look at her. She's one of the most successful self-made billionaires worth $3 billion!
Now if these people had given up when the darkness came, they wouldn't have held hands with the light. I'm sure even in the light, they still have dark days, but they know that darkness only comes to lead them to the light.
What's your story?
3. Darkness Serves a Purpose
The darkness is real, and it's crippling. We won't underestimate how scary it is to find yourself in complete darkness. But we also won't forget the beauty of darkness. Without the darkness, would you really appreciate the light when it came? Probably not. You would take the light for granted.
The purpose of the dark is to make you value the light.
Darkness is just as valuable as light. It helps you see your power. You won’t realize how strong you are until you survive the dark.
It is a different kind of power when you move yourself to the end of the tunnel. It's a different type of strength when you're the one to pull yourself out of rock bottom. When you pull yourself out of a rut, you see your might and the wisdom and knowledge you gain along the way are yours to keep forever.
When you finally realize that the hurt and the disappointment are all lessons you needed to learn in order to live your purpose, you are empowered.
Give in to the darkness. Surrender to it and let it ran its course. Let it teach you what it came to teach you and allow it to lead you to a wonderful place.
