The Candle in the Storm
Kabir sat in the darkness of his apartment, the only light coming from a single candle flickering on the table before him. The power had gone out an hour ago, but it didn’t matter. His world had already gone dark.
In the span of a week, he had lost his job and ended a five-year relationship. It felt as if life had unravelled overnight, leaving him grasping at fragments of certainty that no longer existed. He had always been the kind of person who had a plan, who knew what came next. But now, there was no next. There was only this—silence, uncertainty, and the unbearable weight of not knowing where to go from here.
His first instinct had been to fight it, to fix it. He updated his résumé, made desperate calls to his ex. But nothing changed. And the more he struggled, the more helpless he felt.
Then, one evening, he visited his grandmother. She had always been his quiet refuge, a woman who had seen more loss than he could comprehend, yet carried a stillness within her that no tragedy could shake.
She listened as he poured out everything—the fear, the frustration, the exhaustion of trying to control what refused to be controlled. When he was done, she took his hand, her grip steady, her voice calm.
“Kabir,” she said, “you are trying to stop the storm, but storms don’t stop because we want them to. They pass when they are meant to. Your only job is to stand through it without losing yourself.”
He frowned. “But how? Everything feels like it’s slipping away.”
She smiled, nodding toward the single diya that burned in front of her shrine. “Do you see that flame? The wind outside could shake the whole house, but the flame will keep burning as long as the wick is steady. That wick is your spirit, your faith in something greater than this moment. If you learn to hold that steady, nothing—no loss, no failure, no uncertainty—can extinguish you.”
That night, as he sat in his apartment with only a candle lighting the room, her words settled in his chest. He realized he had spent his life believing that stability came from having all the answers, from keeping everything in place. But maybe true stability wasn’t about controlling life.
Maybe it was about trusting that even in the darkest moments, his light—his resilience, his ability to move forward, his inner knowing—could never be taken from him.
The storm would pass. The power would return. Life would rebuild itself in ways he could not yet see.
But for now, he just had to keep his wick steady.
When Life Breaks You, What Do You Hold on to?
There are moments in life that shake you to your core—when something you counted on disappears, when life takes a turn you never saw coming, when the weight of existence feels unbearable. We all reach points where we sigh in exhaustion, I don’t know if I can do this.
And yet, somehow, we do.
We keep moving. We keep carrying burdens we never thought we could bear. But some people do more than just survive. They emerge from suffering with a kind of unshakable peace, a strength that is not just endurance—but transformation.
What is their secret?
It isn’t sheer willpower. It isn’t luck. It is something deeper, something unspoken but ever-present. It is spirituality.
Not the kind you read in books. Not a set of rituals or beliefs. But the lived experience of knowing—deeply knowing—that your pain is not meaningless, that you are not alone, and that no matter how dark it gets, the light has not left you.
Spirituality does not make life easy. It makes life bearable. And in time, it makes life profound.
Pain Is Different When It Has Meaning
Suffering is inevitable. But the hardest part is not the pain itself—it’s the fear that it serves no purpose. That what you’ve lost is just loss. That what you’ve endured is just suffering. That all of it—the grief, the disappointment, the heartbreak—is random and cruel.
But have you ever looked back on a painful moment and realized it changed you in ways nothing else could have? That it deepened you, softened you, sharpened you?
Spirituality does not erase pain, but it transforms it. It teaches that suffering is not a punishment; it is a passage. Every hardship carries within it something unseen—wisdom, growth, an opening of the heart. When we stop asking Why is this happening to me? and start asking What is this trying to teach me? —everything changes.
Suddenly, pain is not just something to endure. It is something to move through.
The Strength that Comes from Surrender
We are taught to fight. To push harder, hold tighter, resist the things that threaten our sense of control. But the truth is, some of the most profound forms of strength do not come from struggle. They come from surrender.
Not surrender in the sense of giving up—but in the sense of letting go.
Letting go of the belief that you must have all the answers right now.
Letting go of the need to control what is uncontrollable.
Letting go of the fear that if things don’t go according to plan, they are going wrong.
Spirituality teaches a quiet but life-altering truth: there is a rhythm to everything. A flow. And the more you resist it, the more you suffer. But the moment you surrender—not in defeat, but in trust—you begin to move with life instead of against it.
Some doors close so better ones can open. Some things fall apart because they were never meant to stay. Some endings are actually beginnings in disguise.
Surrender is not weakness. It is the wisdom to recognize that you are part of something greater.
You Are Never Truly Alone
There is a kind of loneliness that suffering brings. A silence that feels unbearable. The thought that no one else in the world has ever stood exactly where you are standing now.
But spirituality reminds us of something profound: you are not alone.
Even when it feels like no one understands, someone, somewhere, has felt this same ache. Even when the world seems indifferent to your pain, there is something unseen holding you. Whether you call it the universe, God, life, or simply the quiet resilience of the human spirit, you are not walking through this alone.
Sometimes, you feel it in the stillness. Sometimes, in a conversation that arrives at just the right moment. Sometimes, in a passage from a book, a song on the radio, a stranger’s kindness. Little signs that whisper, Keep going. You are held.
The greatest illusion of suffering is that it isolates us. But the truth is, pain connects us more deeply than joy ever could.
The Thread That Holds Everything Together
If there is one thing spirituality teaches above all else, it is this: nothing stays the same forever.
No pain is permanent. No winter lasts forever.
The worst thing you’ve ever been through? It passed. The moment you thought you’d never survive? You did. And what you’re facing now—this storm that feels endless—one day, too, will become a memory.
Spirituality doesn’t promise that life will be easy. But it promises that there will always be something on the other side of suffering. That even when all you see is darkness, there is still light waiting to be found.
And sometimes, that hope—that quiet knowing that this is not the end—is enough to carry you forward.
The Strength That Never Leaves You
Life will test you. It will break things you thought were unbreakable. It will take you to the edge of what you think you can bear.
But here is what spirituality knows: You are more than what happens to you. You are more than your worst day.
Pain may change you, but it will not end you.
Loss may shape you, but it will not define you.
Fear may whisper to you, but it will not own you.
There is something within you—something deep, something unshakable—that life cannot take away. A knowing, a peace, a light that remains even in the darkest of times.
And when you connect with that, truly connect with it, you will realize: you were never broken. Only becoming.
