“There is a miracle on the other side of this mountain.”
I was doing a video chat with a friend and her words awoke the hope inside me. She said it’s her daily mantra. It’s the place she parks her brain when her brain wants to idle in the land of what-ifs.
She heard those words from another friend who saw them on Instagram, so I’m sorry to the brilliant poet who originally came up with them, but I can’t give appropriate credit.
I can, however, lean into those words just like my friend does. They are soft yet firm words of truth we can hold onto during these confusing, scary, annoying, enlightening times.
This is a mountain, no doubt. But as we continue the climb, I get strength remembering two things:
1. We’re not climbing alone. Look at the hearts fluttering across your neighbors’ windows, the teddy bears peeking around the curtains, the colorful artwork on the sidewalk. These are all signs of unity. I bet if you really needed toilet paper and you knocked on one of those doors, they would hand you a roll.
2. Every hard thing we’ve done in our lives has had enormous rewards. Think about it. There was a time in your life that was terrible, but looking back you can see the silver lining. That’s because hard doesn’t arrive alone. When it comes barging through the front door, it brings friends. Nice friends. Good friends. When Grief enters, so does Love. When Pain comes, so does Joy. Every one of those mountains you’ve climbed had a miracle waiting on the other side.
So does this one, but we have to be willing to see it. Instead of looking at our shoes, we have to look up. We have to look at the neighbor’s house and see the hearts — or the bears in the windows.
The good is there, even in the midst of the bad, but we have to be open to seeing it.
I know this is hard, but I am so filled with hope about what comes on the other side of this. Never before has all humanity shared a collective experience. I am certain we will come through changed — more compassionate, more aware of the people standing next to us, more like family and less like foes. I can feel it. There is a miracle on the other side of this mountain.
Can you feel it too?
