Cheers to the wandering years.

I am labeling the next 2 to 3 years of my life as the "wandering years." 

Stability and consistency is something I find comfort in, and I have basically decided to live in a constant state of change for the next few years.  I don't always need to have a plan and I consider myself a spontaneous person, but when I am moving from home to home, state to state, church to church, one community of friends to another community of friends I find myself in the middle of an anxiety attack.

Freewill is a good thing, it's a very good thing.  Freewill means that the Lord directs my path, but that He gives me the option to take the steps I want to take and in the direction I want to take them.  Freewill is a good thing, until you have to make a really big, life altering decision.  I have issues committing to a burger when I am ordering at a restaurant, so imagine the commitment issues I have when told I need to make a decision about what I'll be doing for the next year of my life… 

I am moving to Denver, Colorado and I have never wanted anything more in my whole life.

Sometimes it is easier for me to connect to places than it is for me to connect to people, and Denver is one of those places.  At a very young age I dreamed of one day living in the mountains, and the Lord continued to spark that desire throughout my life.  He gave me numerous opportunities to visit Colorado with my family and it was during those vacations that I would dream of the house I would one day live in, the bike I would ride to work, the dogs I would love and the life I would one day live in the beautiful state I came to love.  The Lord then allowed me to spend 2 and a half months living in Denver and nothing could prepare me for the transformation that would unfold in myself and the longing He would place in me to return to the city.  

I am going back and I am more terrified than I know how to express and more excited than I could try to explain. 

I will be living on the support of others (raising $900 a month), moving to a city where I know 5 people, living in a tiny loft downtown with someone I've never met, working with an amazing team of my very favorite people, loving on a demographic of people I have a crazy amount of love and respect for, teaching the hard truth of social injustice to a variety of students from all over the country and once again, I am torn emotionally between an unbalanced amount of excitement and an overwhelming dose of fear.    

Leaving the comfort of consistency is required for personal growth and I am so incredibly hungry to be pushed out of everything I think I know and into devastating realities, shattered hearts and a more intimate relationship with Jesus than I could ever try to imagine.  

The "wandering years" is my new season.  I have zero expectations because God is really good at taking my ideas about what I think will happen and replacing them with so much more.  I plan to embrace every opportunity matter-of-factly as if to respond to God's faithfulness with a head nod that speaks "well of course that happened."  

Prayers, hugs, words of wisdom, insight and love are all welcome; because my dreams are officially my reality and that's pretty damn cool.