My Anywhere But Here Blog

Borrowed Words, Becoming Belief

There are certain words we return to—not because we fully believe them, but because we need them to be true.

They are the phrases we keep close.

The ones we whisper to ourselves on difficult days.

The ones we hold onto when our own thoughts feel uncertain.

Sometimes they arrive as familiar quotes:

• The best is yet to come.
• This too shall pass.
• You are stronger than you think.
• Everything happens for a reason.

We read them.

We repeat them.

We carry them.

But if we are honest, there are moments when those words feel less like truth… and more like something we are gently trying to convince ourselves of.

There are moments when the words don’t comfort us at all—

when we look at them and quietly think,

your struggles are not my struggles…

so how can you tell me the best is yet to come?

Some days, they land softly.

They feel steady, almost believable.

Other days, they feel distant—like something just out of reach.

And yet… we do not let them go.

We hold onto them anyway.

Not because we are certain—

but because somewhere within us, there is a quiet hope that they might one day feel true.

There is something deeply human about borrowing belief before it becomes our own.

We do it more often than we realize.

We borrow strength from words.

We borrow hope from phrases.

We borrow peace from the possibility that what we are holding onto is not in vain.

And sometimes, woven quietly within those borrowed words, is something more enduring—

a quiet returning to God’s Word.

Not always with certainty…

but with a willingness to sit with it,

to hold onto it,

and to trust that, in time, it will begin to take root in ways we cannot yet fully see.

There are days when the body feels tired.

When breathing is not as effortless as it should be.

When the weight of the moment feels heavier than expected.

On those days, belief does not arrive boldly.

It does not announce itself.

It comes quietly—

in the form of a single sentence we refuse to let go of.

One of the quotes I find myself returning to is from A.A. Milne:

“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Perhaps belief is not something that appears all at once.

Perhaps it is something that grows slowly…

formed in the space between doubt and hope.

A space where the words we once borrowed begin, ever so gently, to feel like they belong to us.

In my Anywhere But Here space, I have come to understand something:

We do not always need to fully believe the words we carry.

Sometimes, it is enough that we have not let them go.

And maybe… just maybe…

The best is yet to come

is not something we have to prove or fully understand today.

Maybe it is something we are still growing into—

one quiet belief at a time.

_____________________________________

Susan Thomas

My Anywhere But Here