just enough light

Just enough light for the step you’re on.

Sometimes that’s how it feels, isn’t it? Whether that phrase conjures up the image of a rickety staircase, a towering mountain, a vast plain or a long winding road, the reality is that there are seasons that find you stepping between shadows. And you really do only have enough light for the step you’re on.

When that happens, it’s only enough light to give you a hint of the bigger picture. Perhaps it’s because the terrain ahead would overwhelm you, or to drive you more fully into the moment you’re in. Or perhaps there’s something significant for you to discover on this particular stair that you won’t ever have the chance to learn again.

Whatever the reason, there’s no denying that these seasons can be hard. Just plain hard. Grief can be a strange companion, especially when it becomes part of daily life, and catches you off-guard in the most unsuspecting of moments. This past week, we buried another precious pet (yes, just three weeks after the hard and the beautiful collided in one day), one who had been with us from tiny and then had to be taken from us far sooner than we dreamed. As a mother, I feel the grief of my family as deeply as my own, and that converges with other pain that is my own to bear.

Whether it’s lost dreams, a broken relationship, a challenging diagnosis, or something that’s only for you to know… I get it. Sometimes it can feel like all of it lands on you at once. So if that’s you today? Please, please know that you’re not alone. And if it’s not? Please look out for those in your world who need your kindness right now.

This new month feels like it has landed on me with the quivering of a butterfly before it first takes to the skies. Limp, damp, shaky and uncertain. But you know what a butterfly does before it soars, right? After extracting those crinkled up wings from a dark hidden place, it waits.

It rests.

It allows the fresh breezes to encircle it and gently remove the moisture. What was once weak and heavy becomes swift and light. And the crazy thing about it? This newly emerged once-upon-a-time-caterpillar didn’t have to do anything, except receive what was already there to be given.

I sat down today to write about my hesitancy to enter a new month, about small steps that sometimes feel like standstills, and here I find myself writing about the way a butterfly emerges from the dark.

Hope always has the last say, doesn’t it?

So what do you do, when all you know is the light for the step you’re on, and the next one is unclear?

I’d like to suggest that you stop striving for a moment. That you take a breath and let your light shine, right where you are. Quietly and unobtrusively, as you let yourself be who you were created to be. Because – just like St Catherine of Siena once said – that’s how you’ll set the world on fire.

For me? It’s about being still and letting God lead. Tuning in to what He has for me on each step, and faithfully taking the next one even when all I can see is shadow. He has brought me here and led me to you, and sustains me along the way.

So, be YOU. No matter how ill-timed and inconvenient it might seem. Or how little the light is that illuminates your steps. You are the only you that this world will ever know. And despite what you might tell yourself: you don’t have to be perfect in order to shine. You just have to be you.

So, shine!

Thankful for you,

Kristy x