The Shadow Proves The Sunshine
I love the band Switchfoot. They amaze me. They have a song called “The Shadow Proves The Sunshine”. You should listen to it. It’s been one of my favorite songs for the last 7 years. It never gets old to me.
I love the metaphor that the song portrays. You see, we all have shadows in our lives. We have so many things go terribly wrong around us. Even worse, things go wrong inside of us as well. There have been so many times when useless depressing thoughts just consume me. But in life you need those shadows, those dark times, to make the good times feel so good. It’s that contrast that allows us to truly feel… alive. We need the bad times to show us how wonderful the good times can be. Our shadows prove our sunshine.
Think about it: If you always had it your way, how would you really know what “good” feels like? We’d be stuck in Pleasantville wishing for true reality. We’d be numb. If you always had sunshine, you wouldn’t know what sunshine really is because you wouldn’t have anything to compare it to! For example, my cousins live in Hawaii. When I visited them, I asked them, “How good does it feel to live in paradise?” They say, “It’s alright I guess. We really don’t have anything else to compare it to.” They live in paradise but they aren’t truly enjoying it because it’s all they’ve ever known. You can’t have good thoughts and good experiences all the time. Believe me, you wouldn’t want it that way.
We need those bad times to grow, and to show us how great the good times truly are.
In your life, the shadow proves the sunshine.
