As I sit here pondering this past year I find myself thinking how "Uncomfortable" the year has been. By moving to Alaska I jumped right out of my "comfortable box." With two feet, eyes opened wide. I was ready, or so I thought.
My journal entry on June 20th 2012 "If you are really going to be committed to God, you might have to be a few places that aren't that comfortable for you." Really? I wrote that? Last June? Yep...I did. Hmmmm.... if I had only known how true this would come to be.
So what are some of the uncomfortable things I have been through this past year? One would think moving to Alaska would be the top one. But really moving to Alaska didn't feel uncomfortable. It felt right. It felt peaceful. But notice I said "moving here" didn't feel uncomfortable. Once we were planted here the uncomfortable started.
Joining celebrate recovery was uncomfortable. Showing up the first time not knowing what the meaning of "codependent" was uncomfortable. And I was filled with fear. Fear of the unknown. Which is so weird because I didn't have fear of moving 2500+ miles away from the place we had called home for the past 10 years. The funny thing is I showed up to a meeting for codependents because someone I barely knew from church told me that I should go to this meeting. Little did I know me showing up was a codependent thing to do. *sigh* Can we say people pleaser? And the next six months would bring lots of uncomfortable to my life. Going through everything and getting out of denial was hard. I wanted to quit lots of times. This was so out of my box.
Another thing was I was asked to be in our Christmas Eve service play. My first thought was "why are they asking me? I am so not good enough for this." But I found that the more I thought about this the more I really wanted to do this. It sounded fun. So I said yes. Little did I know it would be so uncomfortable and hard. Over the next 2 months I would daily vacillate between thinking I can do this it's going to be great to, what am I doing? Why did I say yes? I can't do this. The day of the play I was so sick to my stomach. I wanted to quit before it started so badly. But that day about 15 minutes before I had to be on stage I finally came to the end of myself and turned it all over to God. I realized that this truly wasn't about me it was about the birth of Jesus and telling that story through the play. And the play went great. I didn't mess up. I got out of my box.
A few weeks ago I was asked to do a June announcements video for our church. Now this didn't sound hard. How hard can it be to read from a teleprompter and announce the events that will be happening at church. Apparently so hard that it took me 3 hours to get it right. I never realized how fast I talk until I was told over... and over... and over.... to slow down. I found out that I have two ways of doing it...very animated and fast or so slow that I would be so in my head that I didn't use much emotion. Needless to say this was VERY uncomfortable for me and again halfway through I wanted to quit. I finally got to the end of Hillary and cried out to God for help (in my head of course, I didn't want to scare the camera guy Ross) So long story short, I made it though but it was soooo out of my box.
And finally my last example is, a week ago I hiked Mt. Baldy with Bob and our boys. While they practically ran up the hill I found myself feeling like I was going to die. Seriously. It's not a long hike but its up the side of the mountain all the way to the top. And it was muddy. And still had snow on parts of it. I am not going to be able to express to you enough how hard it was for me. I wanted to quit so bad. But two thoughts kept going through my head. One, the boys saw how extremely difficult it was for me and I didn't want to show them it's okay to quit. Two, my pride was on the line and I wanted to say I made it to the top. So...drumroll please..... I did make it to the top. Bob was so patient with me. I stopped so many times and sat in the mud that I lost count. I stopped caring at one point how muddy I was and that my behind looked like I had a very bad accident and just trudged though it. This was so out of my box.
Sometimes we have to do things that are uncomfortable, in order to get to
where we need to be.
I realize that sometimes God calls me to do things I don't want to do, or things that I feel will make me look like a fool, or my pride will suffer. But in order for me to be in God's will I will have to do the uncomfortable thing at times. Does it hurt? At times yes. Will I look like a fool? Probably. But it seems like there are so many times in life where I find that I am not where I should be or could be because I wasn't willing to do that uncomfortable thing God asked me to do a while ago. I am not sure when I decided following God's plan for my life = a comfortable life. In all these hard moments I exposed myself. I allowed myself to be vulnerable. And I learned to trust, to rely not on myself, but on God.
I have had to step the farthest out of my comfort zone this past year, but I can honestly say these are the times in which I’ve grown the most and grown closer to God in the process.
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