What if I fly?

I am a worrier. Always have been, I think. 

So when I am about to do this amazing thing: going to Belgium to study art for three months, I am thinking of all the things that could go wrong instead of focusing on all the exciting things. 

"What if?" is a dangerous question and it keeps you analyzing and agonizing over the future, instead of being thankful for the present. 

What if I'm not good enough? What if I come back and don't get to do anything with what I've learned? What if something bad happens to me over there? What if something happens to my family while I'm gone? What if? What if? What if? 

Ok, so what if the worst I can imagine happens... It still won't be wasted, it's still for a higher purpose, and it will still be for my good. 

If I stop running circles in my head and making myself dizzy with all the details for a second and look at the big picture I am amazed at what I am getting to go do. I am beyond blessed. I just need someone to kick me in the pants and tell me to chill out. 

Really, it will be over before I know it. Three months is really a short amount of time. 

And I have a serious tendency to make things way more dramatic than they should be. 

I don't want to worry about what I'm leaving behind or what I'm going to do when I get back. 

I just want to live. I want to savor every God-given moment on this little adventure. 

I want to live by what I know and not by what all these little fears are telling me. 

I know that God is good.

I know he has a plan for me. 

So his plan for me will be good and I don't have to worry.

The more I grow, the more I feel like I have to learn. 

My faith has increased and yet it is still so small. 

I am longing for a fearless faith in the God who loves me. 

He is so gracious and so patient to remind me time and time again that his love for me is personal and detailed, that he knows what I need better than I do, and that he delights to give me good things. 

So I'm going to try and tone down the crazy and be grateful for all of these good things I have been given!

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11 ESV)

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Matthew 6:25-34 ESV)

                                             

The-places-that-are-not-home

     Life is about moving forward. Time goes in one direction and that is ahead. But sometimes we take moving forward to the extreme and have to constantly be looking for the next best thing. We do this in stages of life: when you are in High School you want to be in college, then in college you want to be married, then when you finally reach that *unreachable, idealistic, glorious, magical end* that is marriage you feel incomplete without a child. It just goes on and on. Having goals is great. But pushing and dreaming for the next best thing to the point where we forget to live and just be is unhealthy and even *gasp* sinful. I do this just as well as others. I am constantly in my own head, dreaming up my next big adventure and dredging up those dreadful "what ifs,"  but I go a step farther and do it with places.

     I always have an idealistic city where I want to go and live independently, where I will accomplish all of my goals and meet all of my unrealized potential, and where I am never discontent with my city that I love as dear as a friend. I think that it will be this supernatural thing when I see my city for the first time. I will get there and see it and just know that I belong. Until I meet that magical place that I feel fits me so well, that makes me feel as comfortable and content as hot coffee on the coldest winter day, I feel like I am dating the places I live, and I suppose that makes the places I visit a weekend fling. 

     I have gone through many cites in my mind and I'm sure they will come back around and be the city of the moment again. But I think it has less to do with the actual city than with the person I want to be and am not now. When I dream about living in these cities I always think of being strong and independent, happy and friendly to all I cross paths with, being a maker and discoverer of beauty, and a person who finds the eternal value in everything she sees and finds joy in the small things. I could probably be that person and do those things just as well in Albuquerque, New Mexico as I could in New York City, Seattle, Chicago, or Los Angeles.

     It's not that I hate the place I live now, or even dislike it. I do like a lot of things about good ol' ABQ, though it did take me awhile. Before I moved here with my dear family I had never lived anywhere else but the place we moved from. I spent the first 18 years of my life living in Norman, Oklahoma. It's the place I knew as home for a long time (and I think deserves a post in itself) and when we moved for the first time something must have broken in me, twisted just the right way to make it snap, to make me forever feel displaced. If we could move from Norman, we could move at any time to any place, so how can I put down roots if I don't know where I belong? Even through this feeling I have learned to like it here, learned to love people here, and let several people know me. Sometimes, though I just can't escape the feeling that there are more worlds to discover.

     So, yes dreaming is good to a point and moving is good (depending on how you look at it), traveling is great, but there is something to be said for staying put and living where you are.

     I think I need to rediscover my current city and be more intentional about looking for beauty in everyday life. After awhile, any place can become normal and mundane, and I'm sure that if I was able to move to New York tomorrow, after 16 months the rose-colored-glasses would come off and I would be looking for a new city to set my dreams on. If I change my mindset my life would follow. This won't happen immediately and I know myself enough to know that I can't really give myself ultimatums. I will still dream about other places and live vicariously through amazing people that get to see amazing things (Read this blog. Read all of it. Start from the beginning.). But I think that this is a small part of a life-long lesson for me. It's only a tiny part of being grateful and thankful for everything that is given to me.

     Eventually maybe I will be able to get to the point of what Jim Elliot said: "Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."