Good Things Keep On Coming

By Caitlin A. Rush

As someone who regrets the present turning so quickly into the past, I was grateful for the reminder to simply enjoy the moment and look to the future.

It was a Friday night much like any other. My closest friends and I were sitting in my apartment after watching a movie, periodically chatting quietly and then laughing loudly. A sense of genuine contentment filled the air, and I couldn’t help smiling as stories and ideas swirled through the room. Some of the people I had met only a month before; some I had known all my 25 years.

At one point one of these longtime friends and I got to sharing memories about some of our college friends from a few years earlier. As we talked, I thought of how I missed these friends, of how much fun we had had, and how close we had been. Now we had graduated and moved to places all over the world, finding ourselves in situations we never could have predicted. I sighed with momentary feelings of loss, then glanced around the room at the laughing faces surrounding me at that moment and was struck by the sudden thought: good things keep on coming.

That simple thought was actually quite profound for me, especially since I have always had a hard time facing change and am hesitant to let go of good things. I miss the past even while it is still the present, desperate to enjoy fully moments in which I consciously and determinedly live. I know when I have a good thing, and I want to hold on and never let go; this lazy and happy Friday night was one of those good moments. Usually when I realize how good things are, I instantly begin thinking of how everything is fleeting, that it will eventually be lost to time or circumstance.

But this night the internal regret didn’t come. Sitting quietly, surrounded by people I loved, I knew that even though some good things must naturally come to an end and that there would undoubtedly be many hard things in the future, the good things would keep on coming. And they always would—as long as I let them. Even as those I love moved on, voids would be filled with new and amazing people and experiences I had never even imagined.

Sometimes it is hard to move on, but we must. And moving on doesn’t mean forgetting friendships, forcing memories to fade. It means opening our hearts to even more happiness and more experiences.

A few weeks after that Friday, the presidency of my young adult branch was released. As anyone from a small branch can probably attest, it was hard to think of what would happen without our branch being able to rely on these men and their wives, whom we had grown to love and trust. But I closed my eyes and repeated to myself the words that had struck me that Friday: good things keep on coming. I was comforted and ready for the change.

Change is the Lord’s way. He wants us to be happy and growing, to be excited to move on with our lives. Life is a journey, and while still enjoying the present and preparing for inevitable challenges, we must move forward, remaining optimistic, our hearts open to the experiences and good things that are undoubtedly on their way.

Photo illustration by Matthew Reier