Where’s your happy place? Where is that space – place – environment where you feel the most whole? Maybe tonight you need to return to it. It’s time for you to reconnect with what makes your heart beat.

My happy place reminds me that life is worth living. It helps me to remember that even though there is so much wrong with the world, there is also so much good. My good with the world is warm summer nights in the country side, driving down dirt roads with my best friend. My good with the world is kayaking on a choppy lake – working my arms and feeling the adrenaline of getting sprayed by a swelling, restless wave.  My good with the world is knowing my family is close, and being able to spend time laughing with them over dinners and holidays.

But it’s not easy to keep our eyes on the good, is it? We’re not strangers to hopelessness. We know how it feels to be without purpose. So in those moments, when our vision for the good is lost, it’s important to return to our happy place.

My happy place is a dark room that is lit only with my favorite candles. In my happy place there is soft folk music playing. In this place, I am reminded that life is good. My perspective is shifted, and I am able to see the clouds begin to break apart – there is hope. There is a peace, deep down in my soul, that tells me to have courage and keep going. I am encouraged to put one foot in front of the other, and expectantly move forward.

But my happy place usually only becomes such after being broken. I am returned to wholeness only after realizing that I’ve been torn to pieces and need to be restored. It is painful to be broken, but it is awesome to be made new again. I am made new by hope. I am returned to a deep, inner well of peace when I am sweetly reminded that life does go on – and there is sunshine after the storm. There is purpose in the pain. There is meaning in the change.

The Lord is my reminder, my new perspective, and my ever present hope. He is the one that restores me. He takes my soul and submerges it into a deep well of peace. He is my strength – always unwavering and unshaken. He is the voice of courage, helping me to get back on my feet. He is the reason I am able to put one foot in front of the other, and my heart is able to beat with joy. He truly is what makes my happy place everything that it is. Without him, it would just be a dimly lit room. With him, it is the restoration of all I am.