Stars and Darkness

     Society wants everyone to be happy. That's not possible. The idea that life is supposed to be all rainbows and ponies is just unrealistic, though now it’s being portrayed in a very different way to how it has been previously. Now the ideal is being marketed as "follow your dreams, buy all the latest trends that will inevitably make you happier, discover yourself by completing a range of different experiences then your life will be complete!" Quite frankly, this is a scary prospect that is being sold. Its telling us that if we attain certain measures or such we will be fulfilled.

     The worst part is that this perspective leaves many feeling that they are not good enough when they aren't fulfilling the norms that society hold in such high esteem. I know this because I’ve felt like that. I felt like a fraud because my natural body size is petite but I didn’t have to go to the gym to attain my size. I felt like a fraud because I wasn’t constantly hanging out with my friends, getting photogenic pictures, I wasn’t going on lonesome walks. I wasn’t attaining what was "meant" to make me happy and it pretty much broke me. I will be honest and say that there were a lot of other factors that also contributed to this feeling, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that I had somehow allowed myself to make the standards of society the standards that I wanted to attain on order to gain my own happiness.   

     We are put in the difficult dark situations because stars can’t shine without the dark. As the light of the world, it is imperative that it’s dark in order for us to be noticed - especially to acknowledge we can’t live without Christ’s light in this darkness and its only through living in his light that we also shine as we become more like him. The standards of society won't make us shine, they will simply make us like everyone else. It’s when you find your individual identity in Christ that you shine. No one is like anyone else. Everyone is their own unique person. That being said, everyone can shine in the darkest of situations, it’s just a choice on whether we allow ourselves to do so.                   

              

     Whether what I just wrote makes sense, I hope that it encourages someone that even when it feels as if you are in a void of darkness, it’s not going to last and it may be so that you learn to let yourself shine. You can't shine without the darkness. You are the star in the darkness.

Ellah xx