PERHAPS COURAGE WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO COME ALIVE
Perhaps fear has taught you how to stay alive, and perhaps courage can show you how to come alive more than ever before.
Perhaps saying “yes” to this adventure will be the most terrifying thing you could ever do, but maybe, your heart is beating for more, and all of this is going to shape you. Perhaps this is the time to say what you have meant to say and go into the depths of “I don’t know what will happen, but I will carry on, anyway,“ as you choose to live and love boldly even without the closure of yesterday.
You have been let down before. You have practical reasons for being afraid. But I hope you know: there is still life beyond your fears. There is still time and space to come alive, as you are, right here.
And remember, sometimes courage is subtle. Sometimes it’s climbing a mountain, and sometimes it’s a gradual softening into forgiveness. Sometimes it’s creating boundaries. Sometimes it’s putting up walls. Courage will look, taste, and feel different for us all.
The important thing is: do what you do for love. For joy. For peace that goes beyond understanding. Do what you do with a mind ready to learn, a heart prepared to grow, and a soul willing to be still, despite all of the chaos you cannot control. You will not be able to travel this path perfectly, but grace will meet you here. Every day, you will be free to begin again, no matter what you have feared.
I believe courage can be many things for us, and one of those things is our teachers. When we take the leap of faith, we do not know the outcome, but we know we will learn and grow, either way. And perhaps it is through our courage to live and love we mature and grow in wisdom. And slowly, we begin to see that even though a healthy dose of fear kept us alive, it was courage that helped us thrive.
And remember this about courage: If you’ve been made to feel like only the big moments of courage matter, I hope you know that every single breath you breathe is proof that you are finding your way in this. You are doing more than just existing. You are filling this space with life. And every moment you choose to hope is a moment you choose to thrive.
Because just when you thought you could not get any stronger, you woke up this morning and realized: you managed to hold on a little longer. You managed to make it a bit further than you ever thought you would, even on the days where it was a fight to notice the good. And by grace, you are still here, through the wild of all those fears. You made it here. You made it another year.
And even though you cannot make sense of the shadows that always seem to find you, you are still an example of the beautiful truth that Light has this way of finding you. Even when you do not feel seen or heard, and you struggle to put the feelings into words, breathing, merely breathing, is a sign of hope all on its own, and even in the loneliest seasons of life, you are never breathing alone. You are never breathing alone. Somehow, we all exhale. We all sing that song. Somehow, we are all learning to come alive, right here, where we are.
Word of the Day: Subtle (adj): so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe (Oxford Languages)
Journal: What does courage look like for you today?
Affirmation: I will thrive in hope.
More in this week's series called "Finding the Courage to Carry On", only with a subscription in the Storyteller App.
Sincerely,
Morgan Harper Nichols
@thestorytellerco
@morganharpernichols
