Three Powerful Words

A simple change to my favorite mantra took it from trite to true.

- Jer Isha Parker Gordon

IT WILL BE FINE.

I’ve uttered these words more times than I can remember. I’ve said them to friends when marriages have crumbled and to my daughter when she’s received a grade a little further down the alphabet than we both had anticipated.

The phrase came out easily because I really believed that it—whatever “it” was—would eventually turn out OK. The intensity of the moment would fade; events would fall on the bearable side of catastrophe. After all, marriages end and love returns in different forms, often brighter and better. Bad grades rarely ruin a GPA forever, but instead can inspire new ways of studying, emphasizing the payoff of hard work.