I’m leaving. In less than 11 days I will be gone for 11 months. Now, my roommate and one of my most precious friends has given it a really good perspective that has become my mantra over the past few weeks filled with college graduation, moving out of my apartment, coming back home, and lots of goodbyes. Her wisdom is this: “Stop acting like you are dying. You’re coming back in a year”. This is so true, and something I really need to remind myself that saying “goodbye” to all my beloved friends and family is really more of a casual “see ya later”.
At the same time, I AM dying. At least a part of me, in the sense that I am letting go of everything that has defined my life for the past 22 years. The part of me that has school every day, can run to the beach on a whim and surf with the dolphins, call my mom to talk or even collapse on the sofa with my roommates to watch reruns of Friends. This next year I will be studying only what God has to teach and reveal to me, swimming (or not) in bodies of water around the world, calling on my teammates to talk through the day, and collapsing into my sleeping bag at the end of what will definitely be the craziest days I could imagine.
So yes, I am not dying and this isn’t a time to panic and run into crisis mode. BUT I am abandoning what makes me comfortable and safe in order to more thoroughly pursue God. So goodbye to the known, predictable life that I have been blessed with, I’m busy losing my life for Christ.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lost it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23-24
