Rock Bottom
Reprinted with permission
There is a place that many of us do not wish to go, and that’s rock bottom. It is quite a distance down. And the higher we’ve gone up, the greater we fall.
Our lives are so vastly different. Some of us may never hit rock bottom, instead hovering ever so slightly above it. Others are born at rock bottom, given virtually nothing. And yet others may have never even come close to rock bottom, soaring above in the clouds.
Whether you were there originally, or whether you by some terrible circumstance in life were placed there, rock bottom is not a charming place to be. It takes a great deal of pain, of sorrow, of failure, of defeat, and of loss to show up there. And no matter how many condolences or sympathies, it happens to be a place for you alone.
But, a great deal happens at rock bottom. The sheer trauma forces one to behave differently. To think. To regret. To reexamine. To reconsider. And time, being both a curse and a blessing, gives both pain and healing.
See, when one is at rock bottom, there is isn’t any other place to go, but up. There isn’t really any other place to look to, but up. And this leaves only one direction left to go, and that is to go all the way to the top.
In order to reach heights that we could never before attain, we may very well need to sink to a depth never before experienced. When the pain is so great we have nothing left to do but to desperately claw our way out to the top.
To each is handed his or her own plate in life. Broken hearts, broken homes, betrayals, disappointment, failure, loss, poverty. But one thing is for sure – those who rise high above the rest have learned what it means to fall the hardest.