How Taking Chances has Changed My Life

           I’ve been putting off writing on here for a couple weeks now.  I admit that it’s because I was feeling sad and I didn’t know how to put my grief into perspective.  I didn’t want to write until I had at least started putting it into perspective.

            One of the hardest things in life is change and I think I’m tired of saying goodbye to people that I genuinely care about.

            See, I just started a new job and it’s a great opportunity, but saying goodbye to my old life and the people who were in it has been hard.  Every time you promise that you’ll keep in contact.  Then over time, those contacts slip away and become only memories.  I used to be okay with it, I was so caught up in looking to the future and the possibilities that the goodbyes hardly fazed me.  Now, I realize that it’s not that easy to make new friends, that it’s going to be a lot of work, and I realize that I’m going to spend quite a few lonely moments missing my old friends.

            So why do I do it?  I mean, I keep doing it and I know I should do it.  New state, new job, new life, new me…every few weeks there something new, some change that I get caught on and start working towards.  Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s the very act of working on something that keeps driving me.  Because I have this need to prove to myself that

I can do hard things.

            I think some people are really passionate about their careers.  Some people are passionate about saving the planet.  This might sound incredibly selfish and please understand that this isn’t the only thing I’m passionate about, but in the last two weeks I’ve realized that one of the things that I’m passionate about and that I couldn’t live without, is this incessant need to push myself beyond what I think I’m capable of.

            I never know what the challenge is going to be.  I’m not really much of a planner.  One day I’ll wake up and something will just be there, that idea that sparks a determination to do something different.  I’d like to think that those moments are magical, the moments when my need for challenge matches up with God’s plans for me, giving me the divinely stubborn drive to do something I’d never dreamed of doing before.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, God’s work in your life is bigger than the story you’d like that life to tell. His life is bigger than your plans, goals, or fears. To save your life, you’ll have to lay down your stories and, minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him.” – BYU Professor

            I don’t really know what God’s ultimate plan for me is, but I do know that I don’t want my own fear and lack of self-confidence stop me from allowing Him to shape me.  I had a mission president who wrote this equation during a conference:

Doubt  +  Obedience    =   A Witness

            I think I’m always going to be afraid of change.  I think I’ll always be sad to say goodbye to people and afraid that I won’t make new friends.  But I’m also learning that it’s only by not knowing and pushing myself into action despite that, that I can ever truly change.