By Ashley Devers

Sometimes in life we are placed in the shadows of the spotlight we wish to stand within. Sometimes we must take the back burner to that which we so desire. Sometimes we are kept at the base of a mountain—held still—looking upward to the top where we yearn to be.

We must recognize the times we are held back teach us lessons we would never learn if we could just accelerate to the top. For when we stand in the shadows, the bases, and the backburners, we learn many lessons. Among the many, nothing greater than the lesson of surrender.

We learn that life continues to place us both in positions of delicate surrender and accepting, as well as positions of marching onward and pursuing Divinely guided actions. We learn that we step in both worlds of waiting and going, resting and running, shadows and illumination. As if we have one foot in cold and one foot in hot—neither are truly comfortable, but you remain temporal in the middle.

But as we learn to walk in both of these worlds, we recognize that surrendering at the base and climbing the mountain are all part of the same movement. They are one of the same dance, a dance that is only known by stepping with both feet.

In these moments of surrender, we learn that we are always taking a side step to the Divine that lives within and around us. In reality, we are always stepping into the shadows so that God’s work within us becomes illuminated.

For when we move out of the way, our Soul comes forward and brings the love and the work you are meant to bring forward here on Earth. It is not the “you” who is stepping into the spotlight and climbing the mountain, rather it is God working through you to do so.

As we recognize this lifetime surrender, that we are not in control and we are always taking a spiritual back burner, the physical bottoms and shadows we are placed in do not feel as “unfair” or “unjust” as we once thought they were.

For the impatience, the eagerness, the injustice that rises as we are placed in a different position than what we desire, is just the ego or the piece of “you” that must transcend in order to reach the mountain tops.

We have created the separation that lies between the steps in the shadows and the steps in the spotlight. In reality, they are all steps on our path that we must walk into, and God created this beautiful dance for us in order to learn both sides of the same coin.

The more that we dance amongst the shadows that God places in our paths and the more we relish in them, love them and accept where we are; the more we can relish, love and accept every step of the counter, climbing the mountains the Divine also places in our path.