It feels good to be me.
That is something I so wouldn’t have said a year or two ago.
Have you ever been in a place where the pain, sadness and darkness surrounding you, threatened to never go away? A place where you thoroughly believed “it’s always going to be this way; this storm will never subside?” A place where you have looked down for so long you can’t possibly imagine looking up? That is a rough place to be and when you’re there, it is so hard to believe people when they look you in the eye and say, “I know it feels bad now, but it’s going to get better.” As hard as it was to believe people when they kept saying everything would be okay, I am so very thankful they did. When I didn’t hope, they hoped for me and here I am glad to be fully alive. There’s a song on Switchfoot’s new album called Thrive and I love that the chorus says: “I wanna thrive, not just survive!”
I will be leaving this Canadian soil tomorrow for 11 months and as I sit here in a warm toasty Starbucks reflecting on 2011 and embracing 2012 I am glad to be me. God has taught me how to survive but even more He has and continues to teach me how to THRIVE! Many people have been really excited for me to go on this trip and others have looked at me like I have 2 heads when I explain all it entails. No I am not vacationing for the next 11 months; I am dying to self. But this dying to self—giving up my schedules and plans; giving up my comfortable bed and preferred food; giving up my money and belongings, giving up my will—is called thriving. When we move beyond “getting by”, “being financially stable” or doing whatever it is the world expects us to do from age 20-30, we stop settling for survival and we move into the beauty of thriving. I cannot and will not settle in this life. I have one shot. When this life is all said and done, I want to look back and know that I thrived. I want to know that I served the Lord well and did it in love with Him every step of the way. Life is a vapour; a mere breath and I will not waste it.
At first I saw this time as an ending and a beginning; one door closing and another opening. In some sense I guess it is, but it’s actually a continuation. I am still on the same journey that began before I took my first breath and will go until I take my last. I am still living my life…just in 11 different countries. I am still serving the Lord…just in 11 different countries. So I end with this:
May this year be the year that you choose to thrive, not just survive.
If I can do it, so can you.
For the King and the Kingdom,
-Aisha
