Why Bother Holding On?

I had my clothes on the line last night when it became windy, and I knew a storm was brewing. I rushed outside to take them off before the rain fell, but in my haste, I stumbled on a rock. Startled, I flashed my light in that direction, half expecting to see the sharp edge that had bruised me. But instead, I saw a tiny pepper seedling pushing its way up between the rocks.

For a moment, I forgot the sting in my foot and I squatted there, staring. All I could think of was, “here was life, fragile yet determined, choosing to grow in a place where it had no business thriving”. Growing between hard, unyielding stones, something soft had found a way to live.

And it struck me:

Hope is exactly like that. It doesn’t wait for the perfect soil, the perfect season or the perfect conditions. It shows up in the cracks, in the most unlikely places, in the middle of storms.

I remember when I lost the zeal to write. At some point I figured I couldn’t structure two good sentences in my journal without getting stuck. My writing was messy. Each time I opened my journal to express my feelings, my mind immediately became foggy. Some nights, I’d wet my pillow before going to bed. At some point I knew I was going through a mental breakdown and I gave up. But one day, I visited a friend because I needed a change of environment. While with him, I wasted my day on TikTok and when he asked why, I told him I had given up on everything. But he said something to me. It was brutal but hopeful and it corrected my mindset. My heart was heavy so I went to my journal to try again. There, I bled my heart out. The words flowed naturally and that was all I needed to get out of that mental slum of hopelessness.

You know, we often think we need everything to be right before we can bloom. Calm weather, smooth paths, fertile ground. But life, in its quiet wisdom, brings the littlest thing to remind us that strength is born in struggle. Just as that seedling reached upward through the rocks, you and I too can rise through our hardest seasons.

So when those storms come, you bet they will, don’t just look at the rocks that trip you. Look closer. You might just find something growing there, quietly defying the odds, reminding you that no darkness, no weight, no storm can completely smother hope.

XoXo.

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