open doors.

May 2007 I decided to follow Michael W. Smith and "go west" (yes, I just made a 90's Christian music reference). Sight unseen, my mom and I packed up my Jetta and drove 3 days across the country for an adventure that I never could have written myself.

One of my friends tells me that my move 3 time zones from everything I'd ever known was a huge step of faith. I'm not sure how much faith it took as much as God opened this door and closed all others. In one day, I had gotten an email in Ohio at college that I gotten the internship I had applied for while my mom, in upstate New York, talked with my high school basketball coach who "happened" to have a sister with a home she was willing to share with a random college student for 3 months. The door couldn't have been more open.

At the end of 3 months, the idea of staying so far from everything had become easier, but I was still dating a boy who was on the East Coast and didn't want to outstay my welcome with my generous hosts. In a week, my part-time radio job became full time, I found a place I could live on what I was making and the boy I was dating and I broke up. Again... couldn't have been more clear. This was the place.

Paul calls God "Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3.20). The last five and half years have not been smooth sailing. I've made some downright terrible choices that I wish I could do over. But instead of a magical time machine, God has given me an incredible chance to learn from those mistakes and be used through them.


So here at the end of the year, I think of the monologue that Samwise Gamgee tells Frodo in the Lord of the Rings... that the great ones... the people we tell stories about... they had plenty of chances to turn back. But they didn't. They took risks and did things that didn't make sense. I don't want to live a life that ends just "fine"... instead, I want to take opportunities, even if they aren't what I had planned, that are once-in-a-lifetime-doesn't-feel-real kind of chances.

2013 will start with big... scary... and unbelievable changes.

I've been through doors like this before.
And I wouldn't change a thing.