Let Your Light Shine

Ever since I ran across this blog post, I bookmarked Maureen's blog and have been reading it faithfully. I love her sense of fun and her creativity. She's like a big sister I've never met in person.

It's funny that way. The Internet and the world of blogs has opened me up to ideas and folks I likely would not have run across any other way. By peeking into their lives daily or weekly, I know parts of them better than I know my own siblings or in-laws.

Like them better, too, in some instances. [for ... how can you like someone that doesn't allow you to know them?]

Anyway ... back to the phrase. What shines in to us changes us and we must reflect it back to the world.

That notion sits well with me. Even if what 'shines in' is bleak.

I was talking with my husband this morning and reflecting that my 'story' is really pretty compelling. For all the bleak parts ... being sexually exploited at a young age, living in a house of rage, searching for personal attention among many many siblings, becoming pregnant outside of marriage, marrying an alcoholic, living in a women's shelter, divorce, death of spouse, brothers, parents, watching a child try to kill herself, learning of my body's chemical and mental imbalances ... that sounds pretty bleak when spelled out that way. For the longest time, I had a profound sense of personal failure.

But the flip side is also true. I made it through the rain. It's been a struggle. I've been rough on the ones that love me. But I've made it through, with my sense of humor intact.

There have, of course, been an even greater number of people and life experiences that have been positive, not the least of which is my husband Dale and all that we've built as a life together. Those positive aspects must be thrown into the mix, too.

All of it makes for a pretty compelling story, I suppose. All these events have shed light and cast shadows on my life, my character. It was only a few months ago that I learned how to take my shadows and turn them inside out.

Picture this. A black hole with gravity so dense that it sucks in all light. Go through that hole (like a worm hole), turn around, and look. That black hole, on the other side, has become a bright stream of light.

I learned how to see that in myself. To turn that black hole inside out and let the light shine back out.

Perhaps it sounds like I'm talking in riddles, but it makes sense in my head. I've felt the turn around in my very gut. The more I practice, the better I'm getting at turning the pain inside out and letting the light radiate from me. Shine through me. Reflect back to the world from me. Then, by reflecting the light, I brighten up the lives of those within my sphere of influence.

Light in, light out.