Figuratively speaking, clouds come to us all. A lost job. A sick child. A broken heart. A broken home. Natural disasters that damage and destroy.
During such times of loss and grief, silver linings aren't always easy to see. We may go for weeks, months, sometimes even years of existing beneath the cloud, just being still and being sad.
Personally, I believe there is great value in being still and being sad, and sometimes it is all we are capable of doing.
However, once we find the strength to move forward—to accept our pain, our loss and our suffering—we can look back and see beauty in the things that made us weep. Not tangible beauty, perhaps, but a silver lining just the same.
Maybe it’s a restoring of the soul, a softening of the heart or a renewed sense of gratitude.
As James Buckham once said: “Trials, temptations, disappointments—all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured 'in the right spirit' makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”
As evidenced by the picture I snapped at the end of the day, clouds (even dark ones) can be beautiful things. How we look at them will determine what we see.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
