We Always Have the Day After

Have you ever felt that desire to run away? You feel overwhelmed with bills, work, relationships, schoolwork, paying for gas, paying for groceries and finding balance. You bury yourself in music, a book, tv shows, a movie, you do all of these things trying to hide from or crowd out the guilt you feel of doing things wrong. You just want to run away, take a vacation, get away from the situation and hope that it will all go away. You think that if you can just hide long enough or get away for long enough then it won't hurt so much, that actions or non actions that hurt will simply disappear. When in reality no amount of running or hiding or burying will make it go away. You tell yourself that facing it head on, will only make it worse, that you will only be pouring salt into an open wound. Hiding is better than being rejected. Throwing up walls or distracting yourself is better than facing the emptiness inside. But that is a lie, leaving things unresolved, only leaves things unresolved. No amount of running, no amount of hiding, no amount of distractions can fill that emptiness and I would say we need to be running away from the distractions, we need to be shunning the music, the book, the tv show that is helping us avoid, because it is those things that only weigh us down more. Instead, no matter what aspect of life is feeling empty or overwhelming we need to be taking it to the Lord. The media we are going to for distraction will only taking deeper down a path that is harder to get back from. Burying ourselves in things that dull our senses just means the hurt will be greater when the pain comes back. The media we go to can be just as icky as what we are avoiding, but because it is in the name of avoidance we don't care. At all stages of our lives we should be looking at the best within us, and the best outside ourselves, only our Savior Jesus Christ can heal the hurt. There will still be ouches and their will still be moments of heartache, but as we face them we will find that more and more often that heartache will be in the past. And that we have a brighter perspective because we faced the darkness.

People who are optimistic aren't cheerful because they've only known darkness, they are hopeful because they have seen the darkness and choose the light instead.

That darkness might come into our lives because of our own choices, a moment of selfishness when we really should have kept our mouth closed or a moment without thought on your part or on someone else's, what ever the case the only way forward is to face it, to do the best to make recompense and try again. Each week, each day is a new beginning. We are not forced to live in misery or to always be stuck being less than we are. Each day we have the choice to try again tomorrow and if tomorrow doesn't work the way we planned, we always have the day after.