“He will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”—Revelation 21:4
Although I’m not a religious person anymore, I still have a fascination with sacred texts. And while I feel like many people take scripture literally, I find myself thinking more about the lesson beneath it.
My life has been a storm lately. I’ve been filled with stress, and depression, and anxieties…
But today, I’m filled with hope.
I have hope that one day soon I won’t feel the need to shed so many tears. That I won’t always be weighed down by the sadness of my traumatic past. That the pain I’m feeling now will eventually be exchanged for happiness and contentment.
I have hope that someday I’ll wake up and realize I’m not just surviving anymore.
Day after day, I work on cleaning up my life. Sometimes literally cleaning up the messes left behind, and sometimes the ones that can’t be seen.
I work on accepting the love I finally deserve instead of pushing it away because some part of me is still waiting for it to hurt. I work on believing that good things can happen to me without something terrible having to follow.
And I’m seeing the progress.
Slowly.
Sometimes so slowly that I don’t notice it until I look back and realize how much has already changed.
There are still things I’m trying to fix. There are still wounds I’m trying to heal. There are still days when the past feels much closer than I would like it to.
But today…
Today is the first time in a long time that I really believe there will come a day when I can look around at the life I’ve built, look back at everything I had to survive to get there, and finally tell myself:
“The former things have passed away.”
So whatever darkness you are facing, you mustn’t give up.
Keep going.
Even when progress feels painfully slow. Even when you’re tired of rebuilding. Even when you’ve cried so many tears that you can’t imagine there ever being a day when you won’t have another one left to cry.
There is still more of your life waiting for you.
And one day, you may look back at the things that once felt like they would swallow you whole and realize that somehow, little by little, you made it through.
You made it to the other side.
And you can feel the light of the sun once again.