Pursuing Dreams...

First let me say: "If your dreams don't scare you, then they aren't big enough."  Let me tell you this dream of 8 weeks in Africa scares me way more than anything else I've faced in life.

Okay so here it is....

Sometimes (okay all of the time) I need reassurance that I am doing the right thing.  I can't make decisions for the life of me. Oh, and please never ask me to choose sides in a fight. I just can't do it.  It isn't in my nature. Even when I know what I want, I usually don't realize how much I want it until it is no longer an option to have.

I've wanted to be full time for the past year at my job. It means so many things in my world. It's one step closer to being an "adult." It means benefits that I don't reap as a part-time teller, and it also means that I've climbed the ladder one (mind you very small, but still) one step higher in the business world.  Before it ever became a tangible, I wanted it.  This week it became so tangible I thought I had it in my hands. Turns out there was going to have to be a trade off.  I was asked to make a one year commitment at least, so July 2012-July 2013 to stay at my job in this full time position.

I can't do both a one year commitment and be in Africa for eight weeks in the Spring of 2013.  I found myself having to make a decision.  I started to take polls of the people around me.  What did they think I should do? Would postponing my trip three or four months really make a difference?  Is going to Africa really what I should be doing with my time?  

Let me say this: I have amazing friends, family, and a God-filled Christian community around me.  So much so that, this decision was incredibly hard, and I did desire their input.  I wanted someone I trusted and loved to tell me what to do, obviously no one was going to do that.  I gave a lot of reasons why postponing, and taking the job instead would be beneficial. More time to save. It's just a few months. There are benefits. Paid holidays. Not a single person played into any of those excuses.

So this is where I stand:

My favorite movie is "Up in the Air" with George Clooney and the only line that keeps replaying in my head right now is when he is sitting across the table from one of the people he has just fired and he says..."How much did they pay you to first give up on your dreams?"  That line punches me in the gut. I've spent months finding the courage to just send in an application, the whole time being scared out of my mind,  but thinking how much of a life changing experience it is to have a God that has called me to this big of a plan.  Ten more hours a week, six paid holidays, and a few extra benefits is not and never will be enough to give up on my dream.

I want to go to Africa, and sacrifice is undoubtedly going to play a major role in getting there. "You get a strange feeling when you are about to leave a place; like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you'll miss the person you are at this time and place because you'll never be this way again."  Things are changing. I am changing. Life is changing.   

I am scared, incredibly scared, more scared than I've been in a very long time but I refuse to let fear stop me from pursuing what makes me happy

All I can say is right now my friends, and family are a driving factor.  I get myself on these metaphorical ledges and I can't talk myself down sometimes, so God has without a doubt been sending just the right people, with just the right words, at the exact times to pull me back down to reality and show me just how much confidence and love they have for me, and show me the side of me that says "I can do this."

This is happening, and today's decision means I am one step closer. 

So once again I find myself saying this: God more of you, less of me. I want Your will not mine done, so I am all in.  

Dearest friends, keep praying for this. Please keep praying for this.  I need you all more than ever.  I'm not able to do this on my own, but with God and the people He has put in my life this can happen, and knowing that is an amazing feeling.  I am blessed to be given this chance. I am blessed to be given the people I've been given in my life. I am blessed to be on the path I'm on.