Fast and Slow. Good and Bad.

It blows my mind some days just how short a time good things take to happen. When You are in the dark place, it feels like it will never end. It was that way when I was sick. I wondered every hour of every day, "Will this ever be over?" 

Two years sounds like a long time. Sounds like a little eternity when speaking of, or living, bad stuff. And the longer the bad stuff goes on, the less and less hope I had that good stuff could ever possibly happen again. Or if it did, it could never make up for all the bad stuff.

But what if I considered good things? Is two years a long time to be married? No. Is two years a long time to attend a college? No. Is two years even a long time to live in one spot? Not at all. My new normal is slowly teaching me that the time for something to take, is irrelevant in the long run. Will it take me longer than normal to finish school? Maybe. But in the end I will still finish. Did I devote two years of my life to getting better? Mostly. But I did and learned a lot of other things in those two years as well. 

And so I need to rethink what I call "a long time." And just because it feels like a long time, doesn't always mean it is. And the good that comes after? I didn't think it could happen so fast! I need to remember such things next time I go through a "long" hard time in my life. My next dark phase might be brighter if I just remember that good things can happen just as quickly as bad things.

I need to look out for ways that I am growing and learning in my dark times too. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I do learn more in my dark times. I know I walk closer to God. I walk so close that some days I don't let go of his hand. Some days he carries me because I have not the energy to walk on my own. And it is those days I learn the most about myself and about God. We do a lot of talking on such days. 

Maybe it is the bad that helps me better understand the good? I wish there were an easier way to do that! I wish I did not have to walk through the valley of the shadow to enjoy the sun on the other side! But maybe I do. And if it must be so, I am glad I came to see it at the age of one and twenty.

-Rachael