Almost to Buffalo

There is an odd feeling your last week of work. Your last day. The last few hours. You look around and feel as if everything is old, as if you have already moved beyond your surroundings but are going through the motions and waiting for the new thing to actually take place, to finally come to fruition.

On the eve of moving, to a new place and job, doubts always enter my mind. I wonder if my apartment will really be there. I wonder if my position will be cancelled and I will be totally and utterly confused and robbed of all that time and money.

I think about all the possibilities, all the wonder and new things. Some of them excite me but some of them honestly frighten me. I sometimes feel like a scared little boy. I feel small and out of place in the big world, in this big system in which I am only one small person trying to conquer and make it on his own.

Other times I feel large. I feel as if I am taking on something so large, and in doing so, I am becoming something larger as well, something greater myself. Perhaps, someone greater than myself. That with each step, each taking of a new risk, I am learning more, becoming more than I was and more of what I hope to be in the future.

I am on a journey, and don't most journeys have good and bad, excitement and fear? All of my feelings are all jumbled up. Yet, I can't always be feeling because I have to think, have to plan, to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible to save myself any grief, to make this a hopefully enjoyable experience.

I haven't been sleeping as well or working out as much lately. I have been packing, fixing my car, and getting my apartment cleaned for the move. In four days and I am out of my current apartment. In five days from this town. It is all so new. All so different. Buffalo is so many miles away from everything and everyone I have ever known. I can't imagine what missionaries go through leaving the country. At least I will still be in the states and speaking English.

I know this was the right decision, but with my personality as an introvert this change will take some time to adjust to, as all changes take time for myself. However, God has blessed me and I have grown more as I have taken every step the last few years. I am glad I made this choice and am making this move, but it doesn't mean I am 100% comfortable.

Something I have learned about God and Faith is that you don't grow when you are comfortable, you either become stagnant or regress. However, when we are challenged, when we take risks, when we push further than ourselves, than the people we are currently (or were in the past) and more-so into the person we wish to become... Well, that is the place where radical shifts in growth and in our thought process take place.

So, to those who know me personally, please pray. Pray that He who started a good work in me is faithful to complete it... and that I will continue to work hard and challenge myself, not only for Christ and His Kingdom but also to grow myself personally and professionally.

I also pray for those of you who are reading this and pondering what God has for you next. Ponder no longer.

You know that thing that makes you uncomfortable, that idea that makes you squirm? You know those types of people you don't like too much? You know that thing that you want to do yet keep putting off? Well, odds are that is where God is working in you and you are holding yourself and your potential back.

I pray you push forward. I pray you become uncomfortable. Perhaps if we were more uncomfortable there would be less poverty and war. Perhaps if we were uncomfortable, we would ask people to put down their smart phones and talk to us one-on-one over a cup of coffee.

Blessings to you my friends and readers, single and married alike.
May you follow God with all your heart, soul, and mind..
And may you love your neighbor as yourself

~ Doubledb