We have a hard time accepting destruction as a part of our paths. We tend to only map the journey we’ve walked by the wonderful happenstances that united to bring us here. We don’t see the forest fires that burned it all to the ground so that new life could form from the ashes. We don’t see the floods that cleared out what once stood. We don’t recognize the natural disasters for the parts that they play in our divine trek. But it is often from the gnarly things that wondrous ones grow. 

Hardship is the grand motivator. It whispers to us “there is more than this for you”. It drives us from our present circumstances and into the waiting arms of what we’re destined for. Strife is the investment whose returns we enjoy in abundance, but who receives no credit when it comes to gratitude. All that I hold dear in this moment I would not have sought out if I hadn’t been corralled from my comfort zone like a lame pony. Had lightning not struck, my life would not have been set ablaze. It burned down all that I had, but just as well, I would have never sought higher ground.

I’ve spent months against a ceaseless backdrop of shifting sands in search of an oasis. It’s been an uncomfortable journey, one that summons many corrosive mixtures of emotions. But I was sure that my footprints, though invisible now in the wind-kissed sand, would not be for not. And today proves that that is true. There is water in the desert. Seek higher ground.