For years I have had sort of a little mini movie play over and over in my head when I am down, feel desparate or alone. This may seem weird to you but stay with me.
Try to see yourself with a big shovel and you're digging a hole. You spend most of your life digging and the hole gets deeper and deeper. Until finally if you stand on the edge you can't see the bottom. So you throw down the shovel, take a deep breath, smile, and willingly jump in. At first it's fun to be sitting in the dark and feel the cool air blow on your face, it's silent and peaceful.
Then all at once you realize that you hate it and you start the huge task of climbing out. You dig your hands into the side of the hole trying to grip onto a rock or a root or anything that will help you get out. You climb a couple of feet and then the dirt works loose and you fall to the bottom, over and over you make a little bit of progress just to fall back to the bottom. Your face is covered with dirt, your hands start to bleed, your tired, hungry and thirsty. You spend days, weeks, months, years trying over and over to climb out, you never give up! After a while from all of your effort, the sides of the hole aren't smooth like they were at first. The sides start to harden and through all of your grabbing and pulling of the dirt steps are forming. The steps are large enough for a foot. You start climbing up the side carefully placing your feet on a step while grabbing the next with your hand. Every so often you slip and fall but not to the very bottom. Eventually you are able to see light, you stop to catch your breath and keep going. Soon you can hear people yelling and as you get closer you realize they are calling your name or just calling Mom. After what seems to be years of climbing you get close enough to the top to realize that you recognize the voices calling your name. This gives you hope and faith that you will finally make it to the top but you are so tired. Climbing and climbing you can finally feel the sun on your head. You are so tired and want to just give up, but the voices won't let you. The sun is so bright you look up to see how far you have to go, as you shield you eyes from the sun you can see hands, lots of hands, they are all reaching down. One hand reaches further than the others and wraps it's fingers around your wrist. With this firm hand pulling you are finally out of the hole. It's bright, warm, happy, everything you've always wanted. You didn't give up, you made it out!
I've thought about this often in the past years. Life happens, we all have challenges, trials, things to overcome. No one knows what our future will be, one can only do the best they can. That's the secret, to keep doing your best, it may not make things easier, or make bad things not happen but I think you'll have the strength to handle it and continue on.
