Wisdom from Harry Potter

This morning, somewhere between sleep and awake, I had this dream that I want to share with you.

Young Harry has no idea what's
in store for him.

I was watching Harry Potter. One of the early ones, because Harry was young. He had been fighting Voldemort. He was upset and wanted to give up.  He was saying (I think to me): "What's the point in trying (to kill Voldemort)? He's bigger, stronger, more powerful. I just want to give up."*

But just then, Harry from the epilogue of book 7 came in.  An older, wiser Harry.  He said (again, I think this was to me) "You know how the epilogue shows you what a great life I have now? How I'm a successful auror with a great wife and amazing kids? How there's no more Voldy?"

And I was like, "Yeah."

And he was all "This young Harry doesn't know all that, so he feels like it is better to give up.  But you and I know that if he gave up and let Voldemort kill him, he would miss out on so much good stuff later."

See all of this good stuff Harry would've missed out on?

It made so much sense.

I woke up and immediately thought of a good friend of mine, and how I needed to tell her about this dream.  But, as I wrote it all out to her in a letter (I wrote a letter first thing this morning so I wouldn't forget it), I realized this really applies to me and anyone going through a tough time. You don't have to be in a deep depression or suicidal to need to hear this message. Anyone stuck in a rut or a struggle has a hard time seeing over the top of that hill to what comes next.

While we may not ever become famous aurors, there is other stuff - good stuff -  to look forward to. It gets better.

It's weird to think about how dreams formulate themselves.  I think this one is mainly because I saw the movie "Bully" with my youth group on Sunday.  It's a documentary, and in it several kids had killed themselves because they were being bullied to the point where they couldn't deal with it.  I just kept wanting to tell them, and the students in my youth group, that life gets better.  Once you get out of high school things are different, so you just need to keep living and get past this tough patch.  Also, I think I've been thinking about Harry Potter a lot because of my friend Jenna just finished the series and because my friend Amie's (a Harry Potter obsess-or if there ever was one) birthday is Saturday.


Here's the epilogue scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, if you're interested.


*For the record, Harry Potter would never think like that in real life. This was clearly the dream speaking.