The Whispers That Guide Us Back

This week, Maryland was blanketed with snow. My wife has been waiting her whole life, or at least it feels that way, to play in the snow with our kids. Year after year, we’ve tried, but the kids weren’t interested. This year, though, something shifted. They were all in, and so was she. Hours were spent on the hill in our backyard, sliding, laughing, and soaking in the moment.

For her, it wasn’t just a snow day. It was a dream realized. A childhood vision brought to life. Growing up in Florida, she had imagined this scene, and now she was living it. In a world obsessed with markers of success that often feel empty, she was sitting in the snow with our kids, knowing she had chosen this life, and she’d choose it again just to have that moment.

I watched.

I admired.

I was able to be in the moment with her.

Then I wondered.

Did she know about this moment and had just been waiting for it to arrive?

Have you ever had an idea appear out of nowhere, almost like a gift? Not just a fragment of a thought, but a fully formed, end-to-end idea? A vision so vivid you can actually feel what it would be like to bring it to life.

Sometimes, within hours, the glow of that idea fades, and you begin to see gaps or challenges you hadn’t noticed at first. Sometimes you get busy and forget. And other times, you grab it and run. It feels like freedom, like a divine gift. But along the way, reality sets in. The idea bumps up against practicality, so you adjust. You tweak, customize, and reframe to make it “work.” Slowly, the original vision fades. The outcome might look familiar, but the path to get there feels unrecognizable.

What if those ideas, those flashes of inspiration, aren’t just fleeting gifts? What if they’re something deeper? What if they’re reminders? Reminders pulling us back onto the path we chose, calling us to realign with the life we intended to live.

It’s so easy to drift off course, or to feel like you’ve drifted, from your hopes and dreams, isn’t it? Maybe it’s because the timing isn’t right, or because this thing or that thing isn’t yet what it needs to be. Or maybe it’s because the things that work their way into feeling like the reason we’re here have stepped into the lead role, quieting the real reasons.

As we tend to do every week, I want to push the boundaries of our thinking together. I want to step into a space that might feel uncomfortable and explore a belief that has profoundly shaped my life:

I believe in soul choice.

I believe we entered this life knowing exactly what it would look like.

In my imagination, I picture a vast warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with lives to choose from. A seemingly endless maze of aisles, each labeled with ultimate outcomes - Love, Family, Connection, Freedom, Impact. Not the markers we typically chase, like money, success, titles, or recognition, but the deeper truths that define a life well lived.

When it was my turn to choose, I imagine myself with laser focus, just as I am when I walk into the store to grab a couple of things. I knew exactly what I was after. I found the aisle, grabbed my box, and headed for the door. My wife, on the other hand, would linger. She’d stroll through the aisles, stopping to touch the soft towels or examine the details on a box that caught her eye. She’d savor the experience before finally just getting the eggs she came for.

It feels like I read the fine print on my box while standing in line, each ingredient detailing what I’d have to endure to reach the life I chose. Those details? I’d deal with them as they came, as long as the outcome was there.

I knew what I was signing up for.

I’d do it again, right here, right now and without hesitation. Every single bit of it. Not a moment missed, skipped or made easier.

But what if that tug we feel, that sense of “knowing” this is it, isn’t about knowing at all? What if it’s about remembering? Remembering why we chose this life in the first place.

What if we took the time to touch those buried truths? To reconnect with what really matters, hidden beneath the noise but familiar the moment we touch it. Familiar enough to feel and know it’s the real truth.

Maybe those tugs and whispers aren’t just reminders but they’re guideposts. The life we chose, sometimes quietly and sometimes urgently, running in the background, pulling us forward, pulling us through.

Maybe they’re calling us to step out of the grind and back into the wonder. Back into the life we knew was ours all along.

What if we all trusted those whispers and allowed them to guide us, not just toward what’s possible, but toward the life we were always meant to live?