Recently, I wrote about lighting the Chanukiah for Chanukah in our home, and lighting the “candles” on the one we built outside. I was in charge of the inside one, and my husband took care of lighting the outside one. Each night, we could appreciate how the light grew, reminding us in a moving way that the “light can grow” if we make the effort.

In these dark times, growing the light is up to each one of us. It’s easy to get buried in the shadows and the darkness; we keep hoping for miracles instead of working hard to actualize G-d’s intervention in our lives. We pray that the attacks on Jews will stop, that the radical Islamists will throw down their weapons. We hope to save our country from criminal illegal aliens and that ICE agents are safe. We hope for sanity on the part of our adversaries and reconciliation for the sake of our country. We wait . . . and wait . . .  and wait.

But waiting and hoping only leads to more waiting, more passivity and hopelessness. It is so easy for some of us to simply give up, to resign ourselves to the darkness and wish we were living in another time. We can become overwhelmed by the bleakness and frustration that seem to follow us wherever we go.

The last few weeks I have sensed a change in my attitude, in my being. I have benefited so much from this fine country and the opportunities it has offered. The relationships with my husband and my friends have nurtured my life as each of us pursues the dreams we love the most. And I feel like I have the ability, the obligation, to encourage and lift up others as the darkness laps at the edges of our lives.

I hope readers will take this time of year to remember that they have a choice: to suffer in the struggles that you may be encountering, or to emerge even stronger than you were before. And to encourage and support those around you.

The Founding Fathers would expect no less.