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.  

Endurance equals freedom.

It isn't until I see my words written out on a piece of paper or a computer screen that I understand what I am thinking or what I am trying to say.  My hands and mind are often on different wavelengths and without realizing it I will look up and find my hearts deepest hurts and most genuine joys.  

I want to be brave.  I want to allow the Lord to empower me to walk in the fullness of my new season but I want to stay right here forever; holding my roommates hands and swooning over pretty Scottish boys on our new favorite TV show.  I want to continue discipling the sweet youth students I have gotten to invest in this summer, but I want to see them be lead by someone new.  I want this summer to last forever, but I want to it to be fall more than just about anything.  I want to move to Denver this very second, but I never want to hug my friend’s goodbye. I want to keep my Hannah's at arms length for as long as they will allow me to, but I want HA to go on the World Race and HB to get married in March.  I want to stop moving forward, but my heart is running as fast as it can in a direction I am incredibly excited about.  

I am torn and everything is unsure.  Everything except the Lord and His divine love and grace.  Thank goodness that the most important aspect of who I am will never change.  Praise Jesus for offering me consistency within Himself.  

Growth is this really weird thing that happens without you realizing it; one day you're 2 foot nothing and the next you're well over 5 feet tall, one day you're walking into high school and the next you're graduating college, one day you're being introduced to Jesus and the next you're walking in the Spirit; seeking His guidance in every tiny and huge decision.

After working with high school students all summer it hit me just how much I have grown and how unaware I was that it was happening.  Isn't it weird how one day you're struggling to forgive someone that really hurt you and then the next you're able to see beyond the thing they said or did to you?  What happens during the time between those two things occurring?  I didn't just arrive at a place of forgiveness or healing, I had to walk through a long, strenuous, heart wrenching process of releasing the things I had (*have) clenched in my white-knuckled fists.  Growth happens on the way to your destination; I didn't get to where I am because I just showed up here, I had to endure a lot in order to be freed from the things that were chaining me down.  

I have been trailing my anxious and unsettled heart back to the fact that a lot of change is happening this week, but ultimately I am worried about being called to release things I have held a little too close for a little too long.  I am being called to move beyond life as a college student, I am being removed from my community and the city I have called home for 4 years, I have to say goodbye to the comfort of my church family, I need to let go of the familiar presence my roommates give up everyday, I am being told to move forward without giving into the temptation to look back.  I have been told that to live a life that glorifies and furthers the Lord's Kingdom is a life that guarantees sacrifice, and it's about that time to make A LOT of sacrifices.  

I want to be where I am going without the journey, without the growing or stretching, because that part sucks.  I know that the Lord does not do anything half way, and as thankful as I am to serve a God that is thorough, I am anxious about the fact that He won't let me JUST arrive, but that He is going to walk down a path with me that is going to call for a lot of sacrifice.  It is time, again, for a lot of growth to take place and that's pretty dang terrifying.  

  

I will let go.  I will release.  I will be brave.