Choose Right

Someone once asked me, “How can you still be so tender, after walking through so much hurt?”
And I answered, “It is precisely because of the hurt I have walked through.”

Pain is a teacher dressed in shadows. To some, it becomes a poison that corrodes their spirit, leaving them cruel, bitter, and unkind. But to others - to those who listen closely - pain becomes the chisel that carves out compassion, the fire that tempers the heart into gentleness.

When you have sat alone in the darkness, aching for a voice that whispers, “You are not alone,” you learn to be that voice. When you have longed for a hand to lift you from the ashes, you decide that your hands will never push another soul into the flames. That is the sacred alchemy of suffering: it can turn anguish into tenderness, wounds into wisdom, sorrow into love.

But healing, ah, healing is not easy. It asks you to unclench your fists when rage begs for vengeance. It asks you to soften when hatred promises power. It asks you to resist the sweet poison of bitterness, even when it feels easier to drink. Healing asks you to choose light, again and again, though darkness calls with a familiar voice.

The line is thin. Sometimes it is no more than a breath. On one side: ruin. On the other: rebirth. To hate is to die a thousand tiny deaths. To love, even after heartbreak, is to live forever.

And so, I choose love. I choose light. I choose life.

It takes an extraordinary soul to make this choice. But why, tell me, would anyone ever settle for being anything less than extraordinary?

~ Ochuwa Jessica
Writer. Healer. Lover.