…it feels as if our progress and freedoms are slowly dwindling down to nothing. It isn’t difficult to see all the horrible events, wars, hate, and acts of violence happening in the world. And more often than not, we tend to focus on the negatives in life. Yes, I would agree that the news and social media play a huge role in the fascination and following of the above. However, I personally feel that we can focus on the negatives while adding in some positivity. I know, you are probably thinking to yourself, “what on earth is she talking about?”. I will go into further detail, after I share this quote with you. This quote is a perfect entrance into how we can incorporate the darkness and the light!

These words and this passage are powerful, separately and together. If you pull out the words, courage, darkness, hold the torch, walk the hardest paths, they all can create different feelings and generate different thoughts. But, when you put these words together, in the quote above, the statement is POWERFUL! The statement RESONATES and holds so much TRUTH.

Right now, we are living in a world that is past being divided on what is right and wrong, what is moral or immoral, and what is ethical or unethical. As a human being, a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a social worker, it is hard for me to personally sit back and not be the torch within the darkness for those who need too see light. It truly does take true and steadfast courage to stop the darkness, hatred, and mistreatment in our world. Courage, within itself, is a hard thing to muster when you are feeling anxious and scared yourself. This is why it takes just one person to start lighting the way, and then others will follow continue to spread the light within the dark.

Many of us are very fortunate for the life we live, the resources at have, the home we live in, the cars we drive, the safety and freedoms we still have, and for the food we are able to eat daily. There are many who do not have these aspects of life to be grateful for, and those are the people that we need to hold the light (or torch) the most. During life, there are many different paths that you will have to choose which is the best to meander down. Sometimes the pathways chosen can be easy, hard, or somewhere in between. You can go down each pathway, sometimes multiple times, during your life here on Earth. But, it is within these paths chosen that you have to make the best choices while taking that chosen path. I have personally been down a very dark and scary path, but I can’t begin to express that good can come out of dark/evil/scary paths. It is a choice though, and making the right choice is not always easy. Making the right choice to better yourself, your family, or your situation, doesn’t have to be a huge leap. It can be one baby step at a time! Change is hard, change while you are within the darkness takes courage, but most of all, change allows for the torch to be a light for others to follow and support the person, cause, event or act. Change doesn’t happen over night, as a matter of fact, it is a series of repeated baby steps. Sometimes you will stumble and fall, but that isn’t a reason or excuse to give up on yourself. Change, advocacy, stopping the darkness, can cause anxiety and times of grieving. This is normal and ok. Grief is also a journey, and something that we go through during so many paths of our lives. I will end on this note… I can say from experience, change is possible while on a dark path, it is all about how you choose to follow the light. I will always be a holder of the torch for you, so always remember that there is light within the darkness!

I will leave you with one more POWERFUL quote related to the above conversation.

“What feels impossible now won’t always be. But don’t think of the bad times as unrelated to the good. The dark is how we see the light. We need the contrast. We don’t see all the stars in the day, do we?”

-Matt Haig, The Life Impossible

With love,

Sarah Crocker