Change

An incredible quote from Donald Miller in Through Painted Deserts.

"I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing. I changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child...keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire."


This has been a crazy last three weeks for me...lots of work, lots of people going through low times (some riding a little more easy), officiating at my first funeral ever (scary! but i made it), feeling broken down and torn apart inside, feeling whole and fulfilled inside, new friendships (one growing faster and deeper than I ever could have predicted), aching, mindbending stripping and building up going on (thanks God?)...this is the stuff of life. I'm fooling myself and leading others astray if I ever give the picture it's anything other than this.

Sometimes I want to give up.

If I'm honest, I'm petrified of the future. How will I make it? Will I make it? Can I grow up? Can I be faithful to what God has called me to? Will I be faithful to what God has called me to? Will I leave a "mark" on people's lives? What will that "mark" look like?

Beyond all the questions, there are several things I'm sure of.

God is good.
He asks of me radical faithfulness and committed love.
I must not be afraid to trust...to open the door of my heart (just a crack?) to let others see me for who I really am...to live with integrity and transparency.
As a Christfollower, the ordinary events of my life are charged with a transcendent reality that over and above my humanity, the more I am committed to Jesus, the more my light blooms in the darkness and reflects into the lives of others...
I am nothing special, and yet, my willingness to pursue life can transform my little corner of the universe and leave a legacy. What will my legacy be?

And yet, I am still afraid. I am growing to hate fear...