Courage Said Yes

If you knew your future, would you choose it?

Husband and I watched a movie last night called Arrival. Aliens arrive on earth, bringing with them the power to see everything all at once. Every time line, every possibility. Dr. Louise Banks is given the unusual ability to see her future, to know how it all unfolds. Should she choose this particular time line, she is given the outcome.

She will get married and they will have a daughter together. Their daughter will contract a rare disease, incurable. As the child approaches middle school years, Louise will tell her husband the fate of their daughter. He will leave her. Her beloved child will die in her arms as a teenager. 

Will she choose this time line, then? Knowing ahead of time the pain, the grief, the forever-mourning… will she still say YES? 

She sees the end from the beginning… and says yes. 

She.

Says.

Yes.

The courage! The passion! The love that she cannot deny… all worth it. It is better to have loved and lost…

Being deeply loved by someone give you strength, loving someone deeply give you courage.

Lao Tzu

And so, I include the blog I wrote before watching the movie. I’ve been pondering lately whether we know what this incarnation will be like before we slide in. Do we have an itinerary? (I’ll say more in future blogs… this is a big ponder for me recently.)

And so… what if it was like this:

Fate cornered me in the hall in eighth grade or maybe it was eleventh and whispered, “you are going to pretty much stop everything and go all in for FiveBeautifulSouls. And they will offer you the most fulfilling, satisfying, self-denying, exhausting ride of your life! You will not sleep for days and years; you will offer your last cookie; you will drink the last of their juice when you can actually see – visual confirmation – that there are crumbs and spit floating around in the glass but you’re thirsty and it’s late so what the heck; you will cry in tired frustration at them and seethe in anger for them; you will pray like there’s no other hope and believe in miracles; you will experience miracles, real live holy shit-ness; you will hug a thousand times, wash a million loads of dishes because the dishwasher is broken and it’s fix it or take the kids to the movies; you will drive hundreds of miles and not be invited into the concert because they have their friends and well, you understand, right Mom?; you will understand and wait out in the car and you will be thankful you had the opportunity just to be near them; you will drop everything when the phone dings because it might be a text from FourthSon and he hardly ever communicates and you don’t want to miss it, him, and oh God you love him so; you will sew Halloween costumes during your few minutes free each day prior to the party and find it hilarious when they send you pictures of their made-up faces; you will welcome their friends as your own, making room in your home and in your heart and this will be the icing on the cake that you’ve found yourself creating, making, decorating; you will visit jails and churches, college dorms and new apartments; you will haul couches across the state and back again, sometimes only after just a few months but that’s okay because life is messy and you’re just thankful they’re alive and well and still need you, want you, text you, come home for dinner; you will realize that you started to thrive, feeling finally alive, on fire, purposeful, whole… as one baby after another after another chose you to come through, wake up next to, venture away from, and return on occasion. And you will realize that you actually never stopped anything… for in some way, your whole life was waiting for you to meet each of them, to witness their becoming, and to discover in yourself Unconditional Love… and you will know that you have lived deeply, widely… and that this has been your best life ever… better than you could have imagined; there will be days when you think you can’t go on, your heart cannot beat again, the ache too deep, the grief too wide; there will days and moments when you can’t breathe because the ecstasy of being alive with these FiveBeautifulSouls is beyond AboveAndBeyond, into the land of Promises, Love, Dreams; you will find yourself remembering the future, seeing all that will be – oh God the difficulties and triumphs, the forgetting, the remembering – you’ll choose it all, the happy-sad-glad-madness of your entire existence… because to remove even one memory, one event even if it’s hard would be to change the trajectory of your life… and you really, really want this life, just this way, with just these people…“

I saw the end from the beginning. And I said yes.

I.

Said.

Yes.

And so… thankful, I whisper in return to the Cosmos, God, and Me: Brave Seer, venture on, heart open and arms wide… here is your life… just as you’ve chosen, just as you’ve forgotten to remember… and are now, slowly, quietly, starting to see…” 

If you, like me, are finding yourself in the midst of grief but understanding that this means that Love was here, is here still… I am right beside you. Oh, friend, your courage to say YES looks good on you. Kudos and hugs.

Edgy, joyful, pondering…

Lisa ❤

If you like these ponderings, please check out my 30-day journals. They’re just perfect for someone like you. 🙂 Downloadable pdfs on a variety of topics. Sure to encourage, inspire, motivate, and create meaningful ponderings. ❤