Before you start reading, I just ask one thing. If you start, read until this starts…you’ll get there.
So, here’s the thing. I want this life to count. Not just for me. For God. For everyone. I want to live out loud, gently and boldly. I want to confront as needed. I want to love deeply. Unafraid to let even more in than God’s already placed in my path. Life is life. You can’t reject life. You can reject living it. I want to LIVE it. Fully. With abandon. With silliness. With maybe even a food fight at my wedding. Ran that one by Rachael. Love hearing people’s thoughts. She said from experience that I should focus on a dessert food fight because then it doesn’t smell bad afterwards. So, a white dress…a perfect canvas and an incredible photo op afterwards. That’s my thought anyways. Why? Because why not!?
Who am I?
I am created with intention and passion.
I am created…let’s just let that one sink in for a sec.
K, moving on…I am powerful. I am weak. No, I am not. Not at all, actually. THAT, my friends, is a lie. It’s a lie if you believe it, as well. Not to get all Christian on you, but I am not weak. There is no verse in the Bible that says that. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I have been given a spirit of power and a sound mind. Even in my ‘weakness’ He is the most strong. I intend to live like it.
Will I fail? What is failure?
Will I fall? Maybe. Not sure I define that one, to be honest. Whenever I try, falling is way too close for comfort so I give up the “right” to define what it means to fall.
What can you do? Pray for me. I want this. I want this life of abandon. Of passion. Of reality and vision. So badly I can’t stand it. Pray. And live it. LIVE it.
That is my challenge. That is my clenching of fists. That is my fight.
As people outside my window sing loudly and off key, that is my target.
And I will get there. I will and I am. With God ALL things are possible. Do I know how, exactly? No. But He does.
And as He taught me after fasting from all but water for 3 days and climbing up a freaking mountain on the third day, then eating the only Mexican food I’ve seen in Nepal and not being able to stomach it…He will give me only what I am ready for when I am ready and not before, but I WILL have all I need. I do not need to force anything, but I can want it and I can and will fight for it. I will get there.
I am ready. I am so ready. And there are people, people I am at times intimidated by, at times so held by, at times so confused by…ready, ready and already helping me get there.
God, I am Yours. I declare that. Have your way with me.
I am scared to stand out. I am scared I won’t stand out. I am scared of being misunderstood. All of these fears revolve around people. I love people. I love getting to know them. I love knowing them and being known. I even love being truly loved. But I love my Jesus more. And that is where I start. Fighting to know Jesus as much as I can. Why? Because He, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit formed me. They know me and they love being known. And that, my friends, is on me. And knowing them IS being known and that is the place to start.
There’s a quote here in Kathmandu painted on the wall we pass as we walk to the bus station that will take us anywhere we want to go. It says, “START WHERE YOU STAND.” Where else would you start? The end we can’t see. The beginning we can. That we don’t have to figure out. Just start.
I am scared of having to try to express myself. I am scared of making a bit of a mess in the process. I’m scared of leaving what I know and what has worked to push into something more. I am scared that I won’t get there. But I will. I should cross that one off. Because starting is inevitable.
Starting involves risk. The funny thing about that quote is it’s so obvious. We try to complicate it. We think we have to get somewhere before we can start. Like, once I get to the bus station then the journey is really underway. Or, once I’m more like this, then I’ll be able to start. But the simple truth that we rarely think about is that first step. It’s simply significant.
Step with me. Walk in freedom. Walk in “mistakes.” Walk. Run. Skip. Jump. Dance.
Just go.
Do what you’ve “always wanted to.”
Remember that white dress with dessert all over it at the beginning? Yeah, let’s revisit that. It didn’t start as a metaphor, but it’s ending as one. You are a canvas. Let’s not be worried about adding color to it. Adding flavor. In the name of keeping everything perfect, let’s not forget that life happens in the mess.
So does growth. And growth involves mess. As does life lived to the fullest.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how to end this. So let’s not. Let’s start and keep starting.
