Every day for my commuting, I take the train to Cardiff, the capital where I work. There is small tunnel that the train need to go through before arriving Newport station. Now this tunnel is particularly dark and at times it seems that it is never-ending. I believe it is about more than two minutes long and sometimes I get up my seat when we get in the tunnel. I do this as I know the tunnel indicates that I will be in Newport soon. I go wait by the door so as soon as the train stop, I can get off and go home.
I don’t necessarily like the tunnel because of its darkness but I am also aware that the tunnel means that I am reaching my destination. And right after the dark, there is light. the tunnel always come to an end. This tunnel is an analogy for the reality of waiting in the dark for the light at the end. There is hoping that the end is near and the light will burst through.
Hope: The desire, aspiration, expectation, anticipation for things to happen.
Last year, I lost hope.
I was so down, I didn’t know how to get up. It felt like there was no desire to continue and I actually believe that this was the end of me. It felt like the tunnel had no end.
I slightly try to move back up but I was crippled and still hesitant to go on. At the beginning of this year, I felt the heaviness again. I think there must be something about January that just make feel tired. But in a moment I thought to myself that this year had to be better than last year. I cannot repeat last year. There is a need for change or else I will not survive.
This was hard to keep up as I got another bad new in February that shocked me so much I felt like again there is no way out this. I even consider quitting everything.
Then He chased me down in the tunnel.
Through the voices of many, he reminded that one of the reason I couldn’t get back up is mostly because I was looking way too much at the darkness and my own strength Even when I was thinking about the past, I was paying more attention to the things that brought me pain than the blessings and opportunities that helped me. There were downs but there were also ups. There were moments were I felt low but there were also where he carried me.
I realised that the issue was not that I will find myself in tunnels but the fact that i was staying in the dark. without any desire to move. I had made the pain my home so much that I could not see that the tunnel is temporary and that when I will come at the end of it, there will be light again. That is where I lost my hope. I refused to believed that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
In perspective, I had to do the same thing I do when I take my train. I had to stand up, ready to go when the train stop at my destination. For some reason, I always believe that the train driver will get me to Newport, so why is it so hard for me to believe that God who is the conductor of the train of my life, will get me through the tunnel and to my destination.
So it took some tears, some conversations, some preaching, soul searching and prayers but then it happened…It’s like I opened my eyes in the dark and intentionally stood up. I believed again.
My mindset did a total 360.
The same way I used to think about the worst that can happen.
I will think about the opposite.
Instead of thinking about what could go wrong, I am going to think about what could go right.
Hope is always born in the dark.
I will now stand in a position of readiness.
Even when you do not see the light yet, you have to believe that it will come, even when you do not know how or when.
It will come.
Let hope arise.
YVALIKS 
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