The Shadow Proves the Sunshine

Have you ever had a rough patch?
Not like your dog died, but like things are so rocky you're crawling on all fours just to make it up the hill?
There is no safe footing or soft, manageable terrain.
You look back and your companions either turned back long ago or they pushed you aside and are already on their way to the top of the hill without you.
This kind of rough patch gives you two options, each setting the course for the remainder of your life.
You can either turn back in disappointment and follow your companions who abandoned you when you reached this rough patch, or you can dig your knees into the mud and trudge through it with heavy head and determined heart.
Both ways are hard.
Both ways will mean hurt.
Both ways will alter your world.
Both ways lead to a place you've yet to touch or see.
Both ways will require you to dedicate 100% of yourself to that path.
You look down at the steep slope you've covered so far and you see a crowd at the bottom, yelling directions for you to turn around.
"Hey! Hey! Come back down! It's dangerous, this hill you know! Look, you're slipping! What are you thinking? This is no hill suited to climb. You can't possible make it to the top without damaging yourself."
You bury your face stained with dirt from the struggle and tears from the fight to climb into your own shoulder.
You wipe off the sweat, blood and tears from your brow.
You manage to turn your gaze to the top of the hill. The climb is so steep.
It's so treacherous in your line of vision.
Your eyes wander up the rocks and mud, looking for a path to grab hold of.
Your peers shake their heads and some even laugh at you for thinking you could find a foot hold.
But there's a light up top that they can't see, because they've already turned their backs to you and made their way back down.
There's sunshine up there.
There's peace up there.
Your climb is confusing to those at the bottom.
Your climb is hard to understand even for yourself.
Your climb is over-casted by dark shadows.
That's how you know.
That's how you know that there is light at the end of that climb.
You swing your arm back and dig your nails as hard as you can into the clay dirt.
You scream and bite your lip so hard it bleeds as you try to pull yourself up the next stretch of your climb.
You face plant into the earth and your arm goes back to flop in failure when a soft touch snags your elbow and you feel your body being flung onto the back of this stranger.
The ride is still rugged and you can hazily feel your limbs being slung back and forth as the Stranger climbs and trudges through the muck of your climb.
You haven't reached the sunshine yet, but the load has lifted by a great amount.
Your weakness doesn't seem to weigh the Stranger down.
He scoots you on top of His shoulders.
This reminds you of your father, your chin bouncing on his head as you rode on his shoulders so long ago, running from that lightening storm after a baseball game.
You felt safe then,
Like you do now.
You're on the shoulders of Love.
And you can feel the warmth of the sunshine even though you can't see it yet.
That's how you know.
That's how you know that at the end of the climb, that somehow Love will be there and there will be sunshine.
The shadow proves the sunshine.