My Dream for What Lies Beyond by Julie A. Sellers | Inspiring Story #63

It had been a long winter of short, dark days of feeling trapped inside an old farmhouse with no central heat and many expectations. I set out to explore that afternoon, never dreaming I would discover a magical realm hidden away on the hillside in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

To others’ eyes, it was just a stand of timber winding from the creek to the tallgrass prairie above, but to mine, it was an enchanted forest of winding paths worn smooth by deer and a dome of intertwining red-bud trees. Anything seemed possible there, my horizons seemed limitless, and my imagination soared to all the possibilities that awaited me on the other side of high school graduation in just a few weeks.

That spring, I spent many an afternoon walking, reading, writing on the hillside, relishing every moment I could spend communing with my thoughts and hopes and dreams. There, I felt no confines or limits to what I could and would do when I set off for college.

One day, school activities kept me from taking my walk until after dinner. I set off with my mother’s stern warning not to stay until after dark. I scrambled over the barbed wire fence and walked quickly, breathing in the cooling air and watching the waning light sift between the branches overhead.

I hurried down my usual path, past the old limestone rocks wrenched from the fields above during the oil boom days, and up to the wide-open prairie. The tallgrass whispered quietly in the dusky breeze, and as I glanced out over the fields below, I realized how close it was to sunset. I should leave, avoid a scolding, but the palette of colors before me won out.

I dropped to the ground and watched the sun rewrite the sky above the tender green of new fields and the swaying redbud trees. And I realized in that breath how truly small I was as I sat there looking down, across that wide expanse of landscape to the blurry line where land met sky.

I couldn’t see beyond that distant horizon, yet I knew instinctively it was not a boundary but an invitation to dream about what lay beyond.

Today, as I turned the calendar to April, I felt that same rush of hope, even in this time of anxiety, death, and despair. My memories flitted across the span of years to that long-ago April evening that still shaped my perspective, even in the midst of a pandemic.

Looking back, as I do now, looking down, as I did then—that view from the fields still offers me a perspective of my tiny place within a broader world and of the possibilities perhaps just out of sight. Beyond, I dream of a point where we continue to look out, up, and about to take in the beauty in each day and each soul around us.

What inspires you to reflect on the hope and possibilities still there, even in the challenges of today’s world?

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