Before I had children I don't remember too many 'dark' nights. By this I mean nights where I lay awake and things felt bad. Most days when I was little I was pretty tired when I went to bed and I had my thumb to suck and my blankie for comfort. When I was an older teenager I would do homework, talk on the phone, and read novels until I fell asleep with the light on. Then along came a time in my life as a young adult where I went through great loss and I was very ill. That was when the dark nights started. I was in so much pain physically but more so emotionally that I could not sleep and often I would slip away from my bed where my husband lay sleeping and I would crawl into a corner somewhere and sob with a pillow over my face. I often slept on the couch so as not to disturb him with my sobs. He never knew. There was so much pressing on me and I felt like I had nowhere to get away from the pain. It was every present and there. The dark nights continued after I had children as they have always struggled in many different forms with safe sleep. I say safe because there have been breathing issues but also much pain that comes after darkness falls. It has been the stuff of nightmares honestly. For I dare say most of the nights since my first son was born the nights have been dark.
Obviously night is dark. There is no sun and dark is dark. There is this other kind of darkness though that likes to settle like the deepest cloud over our home at night time.
Today as I was driving home after dropping off my son at his little class I was thinking about another dark night of despair and I was thinking about other mornings such as this. One morning I had been up all night and I looked out to see the sun rising over the mountain. Some mornings the sunrise is such a declaration and another morning I was driving home from somewhere and saw the blue of the sky as this continual sign of hope. There can be cloud and rain for days here and people literally and figuratively droop, and then the blue sky comes through and everyone straightens up in one way or another. So today as I was driving home the phrase came to me:
There is always victory on the morning's horizon
This is simply the fact that darkness must always give way to light. Each and every day the sun arrives an the darkness fades away. In battle one always must hope that victory lies ahead and one must keep on going forward. This is what I plan to do. No matter how many more dark nights there are ahead of me. No matter how many more days I drag myself from my bed and feel like I can't go on I simply just will. There is always the potential for victory in the coming of the light and I will hold that close.
xo
Tansy
