All the darkness in the world needs your Light. There is not one thing in the entire world that can put out your Light but you. Let your Light shine right where you are. If you live alone, your positive outlook, sense of humor, and inner peace will affect everything and everyone around you in the place where you live, shop, or walk in nature. Your inner joy extends out from your heart, mind, and soul, feeding the energy of your plants, pets, and all living things.
It matters little what situation you currently find yourself in. I remember a time when I was pregnant with my fourth child. Since my first baby boy died in a miscarriage when I was only four and a half months pregnant, each time I got pregnant five times after that, I needed to have a cervical cerclage, also known as a cervical stitch. This is a procedure done during pregnancy where the doctor sews the cervix closed. The cervix is a funnel-shaped tissue that opens during childbirth so the baby can move out of the uterus and through the vagina. The doctor told me that as the baby gained weight, he determined that my cervix could not hold the growing weight of the baby. Shortly before giving birth, this stitch can be removed in the doctor’s office, allowing for a natural birth.
This procedure was done under anesthesia in the hospital. Evidently this stitch can slip off, requiring another minor surgery to put another one in. In my case, for my five beautiful children, I needed to have this done eight times.
With my fourth child, I was further along in my pregnancy. Putting me under by anesthesia was not recommended. Instead, a spinal block was recommended. However, I could not bend into the tight, forward-bending position necessary. This resulted with me getting an incredibly horrendous spinal headache for a week, getting worse and worse each day.
I was in so much pain that at home, before going back to the hospital, I told each one of my family members how much I loved them as my way of saying good-bye to them in this life. I did not think it was possible to recover from that much pain in my head.
One particular nighttime nurse in the hospital would come into my room to check on me. We talked about the beauty of life, my beautiful garden of children, as I called them, and also talked about the love of God. Lying there in incredible pain, I was sharing my understanding of the love of God with another soul who was trying to help me feel better. She was a loving and gentle nurse. I thanked her so much for helping me.
The doctor told me that sometimes the spinal fluid leaks out of the spot where they inject the spinal needle. As a result of the spinal fluid leaking out of the spine, it meant that there was not enough spinal fluid to buffer the brain, creating these spinal headaches, which I judged to be about ten times worse than the migraine headaches I sometimes got. The pain was so bad I was saying good-bye to my family.
The doctor also told me he could do a spinal surgery, but that I might have a possibility of becoming paralyzed for life. He also told me that they found that on day seven or eight of the spinal injection, sometimes the spot of the spinal tap would seal itself on its own. He asked me if I wanted to wait another day to see if that happened. I chose to wait, even though the pain in my head was unbearable.
For some miraculous reason, I woke up the next day with my head feeling like it was in a tunnel, like the feeling I got after the nightmare intensity of migraine headaches finally went away. The torturous pain lifted and never returned. But many of the blood vessels in my eyes looked as if they burst, making the whiteness of my eyes red from the pressure in my head.
Why am I telling you such a personal experience?
There are times in each of our lives that are dark, to our way of thinking. It could be seclusion during COVID, depression, worry over a job or finances, relationship issues, or a host of other dreary times.
It does no good to lament the current situation. Nothing good ever results from beating the drum of dysfunction, of what is not working in life, and fertilizing the seeds of gloom and doom.
The nurse who took care of me during my dark and painful time in the hospital came into my room often to speak with me when I was awake, told me she enjoyed the few moments she was able to speak to me because it gave her a lift in her otherwise busy day of taking care of other patients of hers who were also hurting. She said she was amazed by the love I was sharing with her and felt uplifted in talking to me. That memory is so profound to me that I still remember this precious moment in life these thirty-six years later.
Bloom where you are planted, in whatever situation you find yourself. Not many of us have lives with no pain, aggravation, disappointment, or void of failure in some way. It is not perfection that soothes our souls. It is peace, love, empathy, generosity, and compassion that we offer to other people that will bring about the better relationship, better neighborhoods, better states, better countries, and a better world.
Be the lit candle right where you are.
Namaste