I was on a walk the other day when something strange happened.

It was raining, but the sun was shining directly on my face.

It felt almost contradictory. How could it be raining and sunny at the same time?

But there it was.

And I thought about how much that is like life.

We can be going through something hard, confusing, disappointing or just plain sad, and there can still be sunshine happening at the exact same time.

Sometimes when we’re in the middle of something difficult, it’s easy to feel like nothing is going our way. The clouds roll in and suddenly that’s all we can see.

But what if the rain doesn’t mean the sun has disappeared?

What if it’s been shining all along?

On that particular walk, I was feeling sad about something. My mind was doing what minds tend to do when we’re hurting—replaying things, wondering what I could have done differently, trying to make sense of something I couldn’t change.

And then the sun hit me directly in the face.

It was one of those moments that felt like a message.

Keep going.

Just because it’s stormy doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining on you, too.

Maybe that’s the reminder we need when life feels hard.

The rain and the sunshine can coexist.

You can be sad and still find something to be grateful for.

You can be disappointed and still have hope.

You can be struggling and still be moving toward something better.

You can be in the middle of a storm and still have light finding its way through.

Maybe the hard isn’t necessarily keeping us from the brighter side.

Maybe the hard is the way to it.

So if you’re walking through something right now, don’t let the rain convince you that there is no sun.

You may not be able to see it from where you’re standing.

But keep walking.

Keep going.

And every once in a while, turn your face toward the light.

It just might be there, shining on you all along.

XX,

MG