Shining Darkness

"Life is like hiking up a mountain." There he was: off and away on one of those talks again.

"And what's drives us up, past the scheming rocks and lurking snakes, is the view of the sunset at the top." The man from my church thoughtfully finished his grand sentence.

Yes, the notion did sound beautiful, but the idea didn't seem to sink in. I mean, what happens after we reach the mountaintop? Do we die from the magnificence? I doubt. For we climb up in life to go back down, and we go down to climb up once more. Life's like that - filled with twists & curves, ups & downs.

So really it is not that we have one mountain - or one sunset in our lives - it is that we have many mountains to climb, and numerous sunsets to see. In other words, things may bring us down in life from our mountain top, but we always go back up to glimpse another setting sun. Because it's worth it - it's worth getting through the tight spots to get to the amazing ones. Though sometimes we wonder why couldn't we just stay up there on the high mountain forever.

But if we could, would we? For the bottoms of our mountains - the hard parts of life - make us realize how great the sunset really is. Without evil, we wouldn't fully recognize the good. Without the sins, we couldn't see the mercy. Without hate, we couldn't understand the greatness of love.

For example, the grass is green, right? Well of course, I mean everyone knows that. But, what if it wasn't green? What if the grass was gray all year around except for one week - one chance - to be green? We would definitely notice that the grass was green for that one week - for one week we would marvel at it's color. But because the grass isn't gray, we hardly notice the luscious green stalks crying out the delicate dew drops. It's just a fact to us usually, and nothing more.

And so, without knowing what it's like at the bottom of a mountain, we would never be able to feel the complete beauty of the radiant setting sun on mountaintop. Without the downs in life, we would never recognize the ups - never fully know the beauty. So while we may despise our downfalls and heartbreaks, they in fact show us realize how great life can be.

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