Open your eyes to the love & beauty all around you
I have had a few requests to write a blog answering the most common questions: How & why am I doing this? It’s going to be a huge challenge! And is it really a whole year?
No, it’s not a full year, it is 11 months which is still a long time to be away from everything I know, there is no part of me that is completely comfortable leaving everything that I know to go to 11 unknown countries. But I HAVE to do this! I can’t pass up the opportunity that is going to change and mold me so drastically in so many ways! I strongly believe that this is what I am supposed to be doing next in my journey.
On the flip side, I am so ecstatic to take a year to travel the world, to learn more about different cultures and different people, to fully engulf myself in helping others. I’m going to learn so much!! How could that not overpower the fear?
A friend and I were talking about traveling recently and how enriching it can be. In our conversation he said something that just clicked and really made me think about how I am the way I am.
“You know when you have a family that truly loves and supports you, traveling is possible because you know that they are always going to be there.”
It’s crazy how true that has become, as a kid I believed the opposite. After my mother passed, our move to Washington changed everything. My aunt and uncle and the Leavenworth Community was so different from how I had been raised in Ohio. I would have never guessed that this change would later lead to an even bigger change. When I met Tim and Winnett, I was simply just their son’s girlfriend but the label quickly changed to daughter.
It’s their parenting, in my adulthood, that continued to raise my confidence in who I am in Christ. I know that they love me just as much as they love their boys, even though they are not my biological parents. I knew as a kid that I just wanted to be loved and accepted. It still gives me goose bumps to think that I truly have a family, not just an aunt and uncle who through a lot of rough times loved me and worked so hard with me. I can never express how God’s placement of them in my life really set me up to become a better person cause I would not be the person I am today without them. But now I have a mother and father who’s love is different. It’s a feeling I have never had before, and it has given me confidence and security. When I was born, my biological father left and has never wanted anything to do with me. That’s hard on a little girl, because all you want is a father’s love. I know that my parents will always love me and it’s in that love that I know I can go do great things. The incredible love that they have shown me is only a fraction of the love that God has for me. That gives me the confidence to explore the world and learn more knowing that I have parents who think the world of me, despite my many flaws because I am truly precious.
The faith factor, also gives me courage to move forward. As many things are fast approaching, I know that God has such a plan for me. He has provided for me and I can very clearly hear him telling me to trust in him because he is going to love and support me if I just give up control and step forward. As I go into this next week I am sure there will be a whirlwind of emotions.
I ask that you keep me and all that are going in your prayers that we would be open-hearted and willing to be molded. Thank you all who are praying for me and thinking about me as I am going through this growth and ask I embark on this adventure.
