Foretelling the Future

There are people who spend their lifetimes trying to learn what their future may hold. They consult psychics, check their daily horoscopes, and try to decode ancient "prophetic" manuscripts. Sometimes, they worry so much about the future, they forget to enjoy today.

I think if we knew the future, we would forget to live. We would spend so much time trying to avoid the negative things to come, that we would drive ourselves mad. We would cower in fear concerned that we wouldn't be able to handle future circumstances. We wouldn't enjoy time with our spouses if we knew that ten years down the road we would divorce anyway. We would wall off our emotions in an effort to protect ourselves if we knew that our child would pass on to the next life before us.

Some would argue that if we knew the future, we could change it. Yet when we do know, we humans repeat the same mistakes. We know that at some point in the future, our parents will probably pass before us, yet does it change how we treat them? We know that if we spend beyond our means that it will someday lead to financial ruin, yet we pull out the credit card time and time again.

I can spend my life wondering that if I knew I would be where I am today, in a situation I never planned or expected, or wanted, what could I have done differently?  But if I do so, I will waste this moment, and the next, and the next, until I have no moments left. I can't turn back time. However, I can do something about today. I am not hopeless. I am not helpless. I can go on.

It is the peace that comes from knowing that truth, that comforts me in the difficult moments. I ask forgiveness for the things I have done wrong, and I leave it. I don't carry regret around with me to remind me. I don't punish myself. I accept my humanness. I take the time I have been given, and do the best I can with it.

It is my journey, my gift, to mold. I can create my future. I can determine that in spite of circumstances, I will find happiness. For in even the darkest moments, there are special reminders of the wonders of life. The butterfly that lands on the flower outside my window....the purr of my cat sleeping on the pillow beside me....the smell of the air after a spring rain. All those things are there in the good and bad times. We just have to open the eyes of our souls. Those eyes that can look at a little doe in the field and see the gentleness of God. The ears that can hear his whispers in the early morning song of a bird. That sensation of touch that feels his embrace in the summer wind.  

It is in doing that, that we can see our future. It is then that we know our future. We can choose to rest in that gentleness, in that grace, and find the quiet, sweet joy that is our life, and then simply live it.