Life is a strange thing…a series of failures and successes. Of shattered assumptions and stars eclipsed by clouds.

You think your spouse would never betray you. And then they do.

You believe your children would never willingly shred your heart in half. And then they do.

The trusted friend, the one true ally turns away.

You lay in your bed, salty tears filling your mouth, asking God to take you away from all of it. The pain is too great. Too crushing. You think the rubble of destruction will never be rebuilt into something good. Something useful.

But through all it all, a pattern emerges if you look with thoughtful eyes and an observing heart. You’ll see the power to rise anew each morning, though the night before you had no more strength. You’ll see God blessing in small things…tiny kisses from heaven when the days should have been nothing but black. Glimmers of peace. Hope strung on wire like fairy lights. The way a rosebud opens, thirsty for rain. The way you meet a stranger in the oddest of circumstances and bond through nothing more than a smile. And through the darkness, you prosper. You shouldn’t be breathing. Living. But you are.

That’s the thing about fairy lights. With enough of them, the shadows are pushed away.

And someday, you’ll look up in the blush of morning, when sunlight brushes your skin, and you’ll know the strength to step through the pain is not yours. It’s God. Step by step, mile by mile, you look back to realize the old wounds have scarred over. Where the skin is now marked and thick with crooked lines, it has also been made stronger. The throbbing pain has lessened into a dull reminder. And then, only then, can you see God didn’t just guide you step by precarious step.

He taught you how to dance in the rain.