Say Yes Anyway: How Love Makes You Willing Before You’re Ready

There’s a love that exists at this job. A unique love. A comraderie love. A respectful love. A respectable love.

It’s a quiet love of someone you barely know who whispers,
“Hey, I’m going to Wawa, you want anything?”
“I do! But I don’t have cash. You got Zelle?”
“No, but don’t worry about it!”

I wanna say no but love lets me be open to receive. Love opens me and turns my quick rejection into a quick acceptance.

The love that exists here is born of mutual admiration and respect. Born out of service to our clients first, and to one another second. Or perhaps to ourselves first, our clients second, and one another third?? I pray it is so.

Love Is Patient, Love Is Willing

This love is kind and caring and gentle.

This love makes me ask questions and grapple with the answers I receive. This love lets me talk ad nauseam about the things that I love. It lets me poke holes and allows me the freedom to think my thoughts aloud—is this what I really mean?

This love let’s me speak my theories and test them in real time:

I’ve been grappling with the 5 stages of change.
Because people don’t need readiness, we need willingness.

I Made It!: What a Ski Slope Taught Me About Love, Willingness, and Divine Courage

I go on to explain how only my nephew can talk me up a mountain after less than 2 hours of snowboarding. I was willing, but I was not ready.

Love asks, what made you ready to go down the mountain?

The pressure from the people behind me and from my cousin and my nephew eager to go and not wanting to be left behind.

Love helps me develop my theory:
“Are readiness and willingness cousins?”
“Yes, cousins, but certainly not siblings.”

It was willingness that made me take my nephew up on his 1,948 offer to go down the slope with him. The second most challenging slope there is. My willingness got me to the top.

But I surely wasn’t ready to make my way down after the 5 minute intro snowboarding lesson.

But I was willing to learn when I found myself sat near top, having fallen backwards—a good fall! It was love and readiness and willingness that let me hold the hands of a stranger turned… Confidant?! My instructor—thanks, Otter!— eager to help me down what I should have never went up.

Shouldn’t I have?!

I learned in those moments, and so many before it and many more after it that it wasn’t as hard as I thought. “I MADE IT!!!” I exclaimed, arms high in the air when I made it to the bottom.

Say Yes Anyway: How Love Makes You Willing Before You’re Ready

And this is the lesson: love is the lesson, the chapter, and the verse.

Love is in the willingness. It’s the courage that says, “I can do this thing I’ve never done before.”

Love is in the readiness. It’s the courage that says, “I can learn the thing I’ve never been taught.”

Love is patient and kind. It doesn’t brag or envy or boast.

And how could I brag when I didn’t know how I was gonna get down? How can I boast when it took me at least 2.5 times longer than it took my nephew and my cousin to get down the same mountain?!

No, this love—good love, pure love, careful love, concerned love, inquisitive love—this is the love I want. I need. I desire.

This love?! This is the love that makes me say yes when I want to say no. This is the love that makes me say no when I want to say yes. This love is good. This love is light. This love is hot like the sun and bright like the moon. This love?!

This love is good.

This love is holy.

This love is the love of Love.

A Prayer to the Love That Opens You

God who—that?!?!— is love, thank you that in darkness we see the beauty of your light. Thank you that in darkness, we have sight by your light.

Thank you that in a closed world, we see the beauty of your openness. Thank you for lighting our way. For making a way out of no way and making our crooked paths straight. Thank you that the path ahead is straight. Is lit. Is clear.

Thank you for opening our hearts and our minds. The word says “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” and I thank you that in these moments after waking up from sleep, I am renewed. My body is at rest and my mind is also.

There are no racing thoughts that once plagued me. My mind is clear. My mind is calm. My mind is full of thoughts of peace, of the beautiful life that waits me abroad.

The thoughts of my mind beckon me to stillness. Beckon me to this page. Honoring love. Appreciating peace. Resting in love.

Thank you love that after years of a closed heart and mind, they open with love like the petals of a flower. In due time, not in my own. Thank you love that your time is good, is perfect, is purposed. Thank you that when I wait on you, my strength is renewed.

And it is in this strength that I give thanks for the weakness that birthed this moment. This mess. This clarity. This light. This excitement. Without the other moments before this one I couldn’t have this one. And this one? This one I cherish. Eager at the farewell party I will have for myself. Eager at the new friends and relationships and adventures that await me.

Eager at who I will meet and who I will be. Who I already am.

It is only love that can do this. It is only love that has ever done this.

And so, I sit at love’s feet like a kindergardener eager for her teacher to read the ending of their favorite book. I know the ending. Because I know you—the author, the writer. The perfecter of my faith.

Thank you that my words now give life and do not take it away. Thank you that I always have enough love, enough time, and enough money. Thank you that we always have what we need when we need it.

Bring into our physical awareness what is needed when it’s needed. It’s already done in spirit and in truth, and we thank you in advance that it is done in the physical, too.

And so it is. It was written. It is spoken. It is already done. Ase. Ameen. Amen.