Perspective. It is all in how you view things.
I have had a recurring dream for years. Decades actually. A dark muddy path with trees on each side creating a canopy overhead. Dark. It is so very dark and the mud so thick that you can barely move though it; it pulls at your feet, causing you to stumble and fall. Try as I might, I continue to struggle to run while dark arms reach out from the trees, grasping at me. In my mind I scream, if I can only get to the end of this road. There is a hint of light there, but the mud pulls me down yet again as arms stretch out of the darkness, always reaching for me. With gasping breath and filled with an all-consuming fear, I continue struggling to reach the faint light up ahead of me. My strength always fails me and I can not reach that hint of light.
This dream has been the cause of hundreds of sleepless nights and awakening filled with anxiety and muscles tensed. The dream is so vivid and the path, that path, I would recognize it anywhere.
The photo in this post is one that I recently noticed hanging in the hall of the church I attend. I'd not noticed it before and apparently the print had been hung there a couple of weeks prior. As I walked down the hall after service one morning, I noticed the picture and it stopped me in my tracks. As people filled the hall and walked by me, I stood and stared, transfixed. I said quite loudly, "Where did this come from? This is my path!"
I continued to stare at the picture as a friend came up to me and looked at it with me. I kept saying "this is my path!" She is aware of the dark dream I have lived with for so long. She turned to me and simply said "This is how your path should look."
Overwhelmed, I could only whisper "With shafts of light coming through. Yes, yes, this is how it should be."
I could not get that picture out of my head and after a couple of days of searching, finally found it online and immediately purchased it.
A large copy of this picture now hangs in my living room as a reminder of what that dark path should look like. Not the dark version, filled with sucking mud, evil grasping arms and fear, but with rays of sun gently shooting through the tree limbs, providing a filtered light that encourages you to keep going. Letting you know that you CAN keep going.
It's all in how I choose to view it. Perspective.