Sometimes it takes a mountain valley to see what’s in the sky

I was moved by a song ("30,000 feet" by Ben Rector) I almost cried. 

A part of the lyrics: 

"It seems like you end up getting what you need"

Because it connects me deeply to what I felt while I was driving alone, on a winding road, in the valley of breathtaking Italian mountains, when it was raining, on my way back to the airport. My eyes got teary thinking what did I do to deserve this, and all the blessings in my life?'

"Sometimes it takes the sky to see what’s on the ground"

Connecting all the dots of the big and small things that happened in my life leading me to this moment. Although I’m still struggling and far from what I’ve been dreaming of, I somehow felt the deepest sense of gratitude. For all my functional hands and eyes, for all the people I met, for all the (what I thought as) stupid decisions I made, for whatever God has decreed upon me, which led me to this point.

I thought, we may never get to where we want to be in life, however we try hard, but along the journey, we will find what we search for, if we don’t, we will adjust well and in the end, “It seems like you end up getting what you need”.

I started to see that I don’t really care about whether I will reach my point of interest. I can always shift and swerve. I mean, I tried with all my might, but deeper, I appreciate more the ‘hikmah’ and ‘barakah’ (hopefully) from the journey itself. Besides, we never know how long we will live and whether we can finally enjoy what we think of as ‘the fruit of our labour’. Maybe it’s the intention and the in-betweens that count

And somehow I felt richer, not in a materialistic way, but because of this wider spectrum of thoughts and feelings (mostly from the harsh experience) that I never imagined I would have.


From that moment on, it kind of changed the way I cope and think, even until now. Every time I face difficulties and am about to be ungrateful, I will remember that feeling when I was in that valley.


I always believe that sorrows will humble us. We will feel we are 'nothing' but a small creature highly dependent on our Creator. Whatever efforts we make to ensure our happiest endings, there's nothing we can do to change His decree for us. And that's one of the ways we understand His love and how our sincere love grows for Him. I mean, as long as we do good, we will have good things coming to us. My God says:

"And there is not for man except that [good] for which he strives."

"Is there any reward for good other than good?" 

It's just that we never know the path that was chosen for us, we never know what goodness will come for us, despite things being bent in a different direction from what we want, except until we have walked upon it and really reflected on what we have gone through this far. Until we reach a moment, even if it's just a small one or it's just some seconds of a life event, but in that transformative insight, we think all of it finally makes sense.

But I've never actually had this deeper understanding of the bigger picture of a blessing until that time. 

"Sometimes it takes the sky to see what’s on the ground"

And for me, sometimes it takes a mountain valley to see what’s in the 'sky'.