By Samantha McKenzie

Death. Disaster. Disappointment. If you’ve lived long enough you’ve experienced them all. They arrive at our doorsteps uninvited. Sometimes the results of our choices. Other times through the decisions of others. They can often be the consequences of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But we endure. Every day we trudge on. We experience the pain of losing loved ones and the agony of disappointment. No matter how big or small, the hurt runs through our fragile bodies without discrimination and we are never the same.

When I lost my father to cancer, I remember feeling numb. My face hurt, my fingertips had no sensation and I felt as if someone had flipped my body inside out. Love will do that to you. The pain was so real.

There are heartbreaks and break ups, temporary layoffs and unemployment lines, jail time and injustices, lies and deceptions and many other struggles that haunt our families. We are pushed so close to the edge of despair. But we survive.

I’ve learned that through life’s darkest moments that joy comes in the morning for a reason. The morning brings with it miraculous moments of chance and of hope and renewal. It’s God’s offering of opportunity. A daily reminder that there’s more around the corner for us to partake.

That sweet, sweet daybreak. It’s the time when we arise. When we awake from our slumber, well rested and full of the new day’s energy. We breathe in fresh air. We look ahead.

Joy comes in the morning because mornings are for moving forward and leaving yesterday behind.

In the fullness of the morn, we march on.