Shadow Proves the Sunshine
Shadow Proves the Sunshine
We are crooked souls
trying to stay up straight
Dry eyes in the pouring rain
Oh Lord, why did You forsake me?
Oh Lord, don’t be far away
Storm clouds gathering beside me
Please, Lord, don’t look the other way
I’m a crooked soul
trying to stay up straight
Dry eyes in the pouring rain
The shadow proves the shunshine
Two scared little runaways
Hold fast til the break of daylight
When the shadow proves the sunshine
This is a song by one of my favorite groups, Switchfoot. It’s really quite beautiful--if you haven’t heard it, the arrangement makes the song much more poignant and touching than the bare lyrics convey.
Anyway, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle when this song came on and I thought about how perfectly it captured my weekend.
My last entry hinted at some storm clouds gathering beside me, and it was definitely one of my harder weeks here, but it ended on a beautifully high note. The situation which instigated the clouds not having been completely resolved, but certainly ameliorated quite a bit—and more than anything: growth. I learned a lot about myself this week. Some good. Some frightful. Some I already knew. It’s the beauty of tests- of being pruned by the Gardener. When things are hard, really really hard, you are forced to look at yourself and bring yourself to account. And sometimes it isn’t pretty. But as soon as you rest on your oars, to borrow an expression from Shoghi Effendi, that little canoe starts going downstream. The second we feel that we’ve “made it”, that, “hey I’m doing pretty well” it’s like He’s right there to show us that we still need work.
I do not mean by this that we should hate ourselves. Be overly harsh on ourselves. Always feel like we’re messy and weak. Rather, that we should always inspect ourselves, always acknowledge that as well as we’re doing, we can probably do better. (And the opposite is, of course, true.)
Anyway, it’s also true that the shadow proves the sunshine. It can’t be rainbows and butterflies all the time, right? And when it rains and it’s dark and misty, and the mist starts to clear, and you catch that first ray of light—oh, how you appreciate the light.
I had a really nice weekend, and it would have been nice no matter what had preceded it, but because of everything that preceded it, I was so much more grateful for it.
We are crooked souls
trying to stay up straight
Dry eyes in the pouring rain
Oh Lord, why did You forsake me?
Oh Lord, don’t be far away
Storm clouds gathering beside me
Please, Lord, don’t look the other way
I’m a crooked soul
trying to stay up straight
Dry eyes in the pouring rain
The shadow proves the shunshine
Two scared little runaways
Hold fast til the break of daylight
When the shadow proves the sunshine
This is a song by one of my favorite groups, Switchfoot. It’s really quite beautiful--if you haven’t heard it, the arrangement makes the song much more poignant and touching than the bare lyrics convey.
Anyway, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle when this song came on and I thought about how perfectly it captured my weekend.
My last entry hinted at some storm clouds gathering beside me, and it was definitely one of my harder weeks here, but it ended on a beautifully high note. The situation which instigated the clouds not having been completely resolved, but certainly ameliorated quite a bit—and more than anything: growth. I learned a lot about myself this week. Some good. Some frightful. Some I already knew. It’s the beauty of tests- of being pruned by the Gardener. When things are hard, really really hard, you are forced to look at yourself and bring yourself to account. And sometimes it isn’t pretty. But as soon as you rest on your oars, to borrow an expression from Shoghi Effendi, that little canoe starts going downstream. The second we feel that we’ve “made it”, that, “hey I’m doing pretty well” it’s like He’s right there to show us that we still need work.
I do not mean by this that we should hate ourselves. Be overly harsh on ourselves. Always feel like we’re messy and weak. Rather, that we should always inspect ourselves, always acknowledge that as well as we’re doing, we can probably do better. (And the opposite is, of course, true.)
Anyway, it’s also true that the shadow proves the sunshine. It can’t be rainbows and butterflies all the time, right? And when it rains and it’s dark and misty, and the mist starts to clear, and you catch that first ray of light—oh, how you appreciate the light.
I had a really nice weekend, and it would have been nice no matter what had preceded it, but because of everything that preceded it, I was so much more grateful for it.
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