LESSONS FROM DARKNESS AND MUD

There’s that frustrating feeling we get when walking in darkness  and worse when we’re walking through mud in it. An endless chain of questions is always on our minds. Am I stepping on the right ground? Will I step on a dangerous animal hiding beneath the mud? Will I fall into a puddle? How many times will my face get rubbed in it? Will I walk into a furze? You’ll always be wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal can dare dream and maybe hoping; a sense of seeing light despite all the darkness.

As you keep walking through it, things happen. At one point your shoes get stuck in the mud and effort is needed to pull them out. At another point you slip and fall but never remain lying there, you pick yourself up and continue walking. In this process your clothing gets soiled and you become dirty but at no point do you give up.

In life everyone has walked in darkness and through mud. We join the game of life hoping for a glimpse of celestial brightness; a nova. It never occurs to us that it might be so small until we understand we are walking in a darkness so deep. For those who’ve walked through mud, these are different life situations. Life can be very slippery and this will cause us to slip and fall from time to time in the quest to gain stability  by reaching a dry ground. These are the highs and lows of life, the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the successes and failures. Whenever we fall due to unavoidable negative forces, we rise with renewed positivity. Our feet will get stuck in the mud (the numerous challenges that we face day in day out). This calls for intelligence (the effort ) to be able to unglue ourselves and steer on. Our clothing gets soiled (the different decisions we make that will haunt us for a lifetime). Whether they’re good or bad they have their consequences pinned on them. By the time we get dirty its evidence enough that we walked through mud. A legacy, a trail that will live on from which our children will speak for us when we no longer have the breath to speak for ourselves.

Nonetheless, we peer funkingly through it. We never give up until we see the light. We let not the darkness nor the mud be the reason that our success is thwarted. It doesn’t become the reason we’re triffled with. At the end of the day, when we get to dry land and in light, we spruce up and furbish ourselves.

New life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark. In darkness we learn things that save our lives over and over again. We hammer home lessons that never would have been revealed to us in light. When we stand in darkness and walk through stickiness we begin to have answers to life’s most difficult questions such as; what are my fears and where do I feel them in me? What are my doubts for the future if I decide to tread on a certain path? Why do I wonder about this or that and what keeps me dreaming and hoping? What helps me stay conscious even when there’s no light in my life?

The wise make it, for the dark is their candle. In the light they are lovely. They shine so brightly because the darkness is present and walk steadily because they can see stable ground under the slippery mud. Barren darkness is special, it gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination. Burst forth into unexpected glory like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon for your darkness is your light and your sliperiness is your stability!