“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

Do you ever feel like a lost little hobbit on an adventure that you did not intend to be on? Or maybe you purposefully go on an adventure but you end up off of your intended path.

Perhaps you can see the path ahead – a bit of a hike but sunlit and beautiful – then suddenly you find yourself snarled in brambles and everything is cloaked in darkness. You can’t see the path beneath your feet anymore, let alone the path ahead.

In that moment it may seem like you’ve messed up and gone the wrong direction. Maybe God didn’t intend for you to go this way after all. Perhaps that feeling of rightness – like you are taking the path He wants you to take – was false. However, hardships do not mean you are going the wrong direction! God can guide us on our way if we listen but that does not mean He will make the way easy. Job and David’s stories in the Bible can tell us that.

I saw my path ahead and felt that I was doing what God intended me to do. I started down that path with confidence. Then overwhelming stress darkened my path. Everything seemed to be going wrong and I started to doubt my earlier confidence. Shadows covered the previously sunlit path and brambles snagged at me from all sides. But just like Bilbo, I need to keep moving forward, even if my heart is all of a patter and a pitter. And you know what? As I move forward in the direction God pointed me, I can see the sunshine breaking through the shadows ahead. On we go!

“You can only come to the morning through the shadows.”

J.R.R. Tolkien