It was over seven months ago when I was sitting in my camper last fall for the last weekend, the last sunset, the last campfire, the last sleep there for the season. I would drive away that last Sunday finally (yet tentatively) ready to embark and embrace the start to a great season of change for my life.
I decided to tackle my health, my weight, my bitterness, my anger and work on finding my sparkle back... finding myself back... and not just finding the old me that was lost... but really truly find the real me, the authentic me, the me I never took the time to find or allowed myself to become.
It's been a really great, really hard, really good, really bad, really emotional seven months for me, but I feel I am finally in the groove, finally getting the hang of the new habits and mindset I have been aspiring towards and trying to tackle and overcome every day. I have finally reached my weight loss goal, I have finally set my next goals and achievement targets, I have finally come to really embrace and love the me I'm becoming.
And now, here I stand again at the last page of a current chapter, and I need to turn the page to continue on. I'm finding myself nervous and hesitant, something I'm unfamiliar with as I'm unsure how to continue forward and navigate my next steps well.
My self instructed change is nearly always instigated from a place of rock bottom, a place of hopeful increase and betterment. But this time things are going great and I'm standing almost at the top, almost at the peak of my A Game... For the first time ever, I have anxiety surrounding this change, and this is foreign territory for me.
We start a new season of camping next weekend. I will again get the great joy of spending three to four nights each week at the camper enjoying lake life, and three to four nights each week at home enjoying work life. I love the life we have carved and created at the lake. We honor our decision to spend time as a family there, and we continue to make commitment decisions that will allow us this time away. No summer youth sports. No summer cupcakes or side jobs. We will rest, we will laugh, we will grow, we will worship, we will love and be in community every weekend around the shores, picnic tables, decks, golf carts, and fires of our neighbors. And honestly I can't wait to get back there...
But... my beloved morning routine in the basement on my treadmill and elliptical before 5:30 am will not be an option while I'm at the lake. I am half marathon training this summer, and I know what kind of mileage numbers I'm looking at needing to put in. There is no town, no street lights, and the weather is not always great. I have no cell service for music and running apps due to poor provider coverage. I know I will need to choose between either running outside in whatever weather comes our way, or not exercising at all.
I hold a fear that I will give in to the easy, the ideal, the it'll-be-ok-to-skip-just-this-once mentality, and quickly fall into the same bad habits and poor choices I made with exercise and eating last summer. I fear I will again gain back all the weight I've lost this winter, that I'll quickly let the habits go that I firmly hold in my hands right now.
Diligence and discipline are two hard words for me, two words I'm currently almost friends with... two words that I know can quickly turn back to enemies in a flash.
I also stand in the doorway of change in my job at the church. After a shorter than most expected season of transition, I will soon also be heading into a season of change amid new leadership, new work dynamics and expectations, and new vision as we welcome a new head pastor to our staff and leadership tables. Don't get me wrong, I am also incredibly excited about this opportunity, but I am fully aware that there will probably be a large degree of change involved in my job. I have no idea what changes may be coming, though I am actually not at all fearful of the cost of their implementation. Yet, stepping forward head on, looking at it eye to eye, does not simplify or sugar coat the reality that change is again right around the corner.
Personal change and corporate change both bring and require their own layer or two of uncertainty, uncomfortableness, questions, and personal growth. Change is never easy, even when it's good and necessary. Change always requires something from us, an investment, an acceptance, a gaining, a giving up.
So while I'm standing on the cusp of a time I have been eagerly waiting and praying for, both in my personal life and in my professional work life, I can't help but turn and peek back at what is behind me. To remember all the reasons and circumstances that have implemented the seasons of change behind me, to not forget the purpose and meaning of my life and my journey.... and to hold on to that while reaching forward to the new possibilities and opportunities of the days, weeks, and months standing now directly in front of me again.
May I be open to what God is calling me to, may I be diligent and perseverant in what I say and do, may I be successful in what I continue to set as my goals and dreams. May I simply continue to choose the forward momentum in my life right now.
May I be openly interruptible by all this change, may it not deter my current forward trajectory. May I walk into each tomorrow with my palms open, open and accepting to whatever it is that God has next in the pages of my life's book. May I be open and aware to the reality that the specific angle and direction of my current forward will be slight altered due to the simple circumstances of change beyond my control. May I be able to flow with whatever shift to the left or to the right that will be caused, but still hang on tight to my firmly forward.
May I allow my life course to be adaptable and moldable through this next phase of change, and may I continue to find my own successes and overcome my own obstacles with fresh eyes and a renewed spirit within the unlimited possibilities of all things currently unknown.
{ Previous blog post "Extravagant Blessings" HERE }
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