The Dark Night of the Soul

 Some say

the dark night lasts only weeks.

Others,

months.

For me…

it has been years.

I am still walking through the night.

The old comforts are gone.

The signs I once searched for

no longer appear.

The certainty I once leaned upon

has become silence.

And yet…

something holy

is happening beneath the surface.

The darkness

does not mean

I have lost God.

Perhaps it means

God is teaching me

to trust beyond feelings.

Beyond certainty.

Beyond what my eyes can see.

Transformation

is slow..

Quiet.

Like roots growing

beneath frozen ground.

Old fears.

Old attachments.

Old identities.

One by one,

they loosen their grip.

Not because I force them to.

But because surrender

is doing its quiet work.

The silence

is not necessarily absence.

Perhaps it is another language.

One that cannot be heard

with my ears,

only with my soul.

Even the longest nights

have their rhythm.

A quiet knowing.

A single ray of light

finding its way

Perhaps the dark night

is not about losing God.

Perhaps it is about losing

the ways I expected

to find Him.

Until all that remains

is trust.

Simple.

Quiet.

Asking for What I Need

 There is an inner struggle I am walking through right now.

I believe one of my greatest lessons is learning to ask for what I need.

As a child, my needs were rarely considered.

I don’t remember my mother asking how I wanted my room decorated.

I don’t remember being asked what I wanted to eat.

I don’t remember being asked how I felt.

The message I absorbed was quiet but powerful.

My needs didn’t matter.

Other people’s needs came first.

So I became very good at taking care of everyone else.

It felt natural.

For a long time, I believed I had learned this lesson.

I thought I had found my voice.

But life has a way of revealing the places that still need healing.

This past year has shown me that there is another layer.

I think about the doctor I depended on while searching for answers to my bladder pain.

It took me a long time to recognize something that had become painfully familiar.

I could walk into an appointment with sincere questions.

Yet I left feeling as though my questions had never really been answered.

One day, I told him that the procedures he was recommending frightened me.

I wasn’t refusing treatment.

I was sharing my fear.

His response was, “Then stay in pain.”

Whether he intended it that way or not, those words landed heavily on my heart.

In that moment, I felt something much older than disappointment.

I felt unheard.

I felt as though my fear didn’t matter.

It was a feeling I knew all too well.

For a moment, I wasn’t just a woman trying to make decisions about her health.

I was the little girl whose feelings had so often gone unnoticed.

The difference today is that I no longer have to abandon myself.

I can listen to my own voice.

I can honor my own fears.

I can ask questions until I understand.

I can choose the care that feels right for me.

Perhaps asking for what I need is about more than finding the right answers.

Perhaps it is about finally believing that my needs, my feelings, and my voice are worthy of being heard.

And that may be one of the most important lessons of my life.

Taking the Wrong Path to Find the Right Path

 Sometimes I think about the little girl I once was—the one who felt alone and walked carefully through life, always trying to be good enough to avoid punishment.

She searched for comfort in books and in quiet places where her imagination could breathe.

If that little girl could see me now, I believe she would be proud.

Not because I lived a perfect life.

But because I never stopped searching.

I searched for truth.

For compassion.

For healing.

For a way to lay down the pain I had carried for so many years.

The path I took was anything but straight.

I made mistakes.

I wandered down roads that brought more hurt than healing.

But as I look back, I can see that even those difficult paths had something to teach me.

They taught me humility.

They taught me compassion.

They taught me forgiveness.

They taught me that every ending carries the possibility of a new beginning.

I don’t celebrate the painful detours.

But I no longer regret every one of them.

Somehow, even the roads that seemed so wrong helped me recognize the right one when I finally found it.

The woman I am today has been shaped not only by the choices that brought me joy, but also by the ones that brought me to my knees.

Perhaps wisdom is not found in never losing our way.

Perhaps it is found in having the courage to keep walking until we find our way again.