Beyond the Tunnel

I have a frame on my bedroom wall to remind me what lies beyond the tunnel—peace.

Dark and lonely times in life can be quite scary. The uncertainty that comes with not knowing what the next day might bring can leave you drained at night. In all my years of living, I have seen people work hard to put their past behind them and move into a new life, but somehow, traces of the past still filter into their new beginning. I have watched people’s attempts at survival in the face of incredible defeat and overwhelming failure. Most times, these people emerge at the end of their tunnel broken and completely hopeless. Failure, dark places, and shattered dreams are things most people are familiar with and have to deal with in this life. However, despite whatever may not be going right, hope remains, and the end for godly people is peace. 

I love to observe people and learn from them. I have seen men of wealth lose everything in an instance following bad judgment and I have seen men of little means become great in a moment of absolute grace. Life is full of ups and downs, winning and losing, but whatever happens during the night, you can be sure that morning will always come. We all go through tough times and impossible situations and sometimes it is a lot to take in. Words fail when everything good starts to crumble, for example, losing a job you thought you could build into a career at a time of global recession, the man you thought you’d grow old with together suddenly walks out of your life to begin again with someone else, the business you built up from scratch goes up in flames due to an electrical fault, or the doctor tells you that the lump you thought was nothing is actually a  life-threatening disease. How on earth do you deal with this? How do you come back from a place of utter despair and maintain your sanity in the face of a life-shattering situation? 

Life can hand you one of these dark moments and force you to re-plan the course you have chosen for your life; rain falls on both the good and the bad. What you do in times like this is what matters. I recently had a dark moment that seemed like it wasn’t going to end. I found myself groping blindly along the wall of a gloomy, endless tunnel. It was easy to keep my spirits high and my faith up in the beginning, but as time went by and the situation worsened, I began to doubt myself and the thought of this never-ending tunnel almost paralyzed me. Thankfully, in the midst of this darkness, I had a ray of hope one evening when I was reading and came across these words: everything that has a beginning must have an end. Just knowing this dark moment would not last forever brought some relief. But just as quick as the comfort came, I was again consumed by the thought of what might be waiting at the end of this dark tunnel. Would I be completely lost, shattered, and unable to return to who I was before? Would I emerge broken, hopeless, and miserable? I battled with that for a while until I remembered something from my favorite book: “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace”.

I literally felt the weight lift off my shoulders and the strength return to my body, knowing that however long the journey through this dark tunnel took, the end for me was peace. These are great words of comfort for our troubled world. Hang in there, there’s always light at the end of every tunnel.