Lightning strikes

On my flight back home to San Francisco the other night, I had quite a unique opportunity to view a thunderstorm above the clouds. It was an incredible thing to see the flashes of lightening below me; a lot less violent and scary than when you are in the storm. It was almost beautiful. It is amazing to view things from a different perspective: especially a perspective different from that of the world's. It was almost divine seeing random, pure bursts of light amidst the foamy rolls of white clouds.
Life can sometimes seem violent, frightening, dangerous even, but if you view these storms above the clouds, you can see how they are more appropriately described as glorious and brilliant! Shaping the people involved, adding bursts of wake-up calls when necessary (more to scare and spark to action than anything else). And like a thunderstorm, once you make it through, which happens 99.9% of the time, you feel refreshed, refined, and more alive than ever.
Life is a constant game of shaping, contorting, sculpting, refining; otherwise how could we progress? We would be locked in one stage and one time, with all of our strengths and talents, but also confined to our imperfections and shortcomings. It is important to view things above the storm and find the purpose of the trial or test you are being put through. It is at this stage that you find out the most about yourself and what you are made of. At the very least you can say you made it through a pretty cool storm and lived to tell the tale.