twisting and turning, trying to find my way

Change.

I wonder, sometimes, if we have a finite capacity for change. If there is only so many steps we can take from the person we currently are, a block wall preventing us from becoming someone completely different…

I know, for me, that wall is comprised entirely of fear. Fear that change won’t happen, so that I shouldn’t even try. Fear that the unknown is…well, unknown, a place where I can’t control everything, where the rules have changed…

I want to change. I want to become someone different than who I currently am. Not completely different, I like things about me now. But a bit more courage, a bit more faith, more compassion, less fear. Bigger eyes to see, larger ears to hear, a smaller mouth to speak. I want my actions to define me instead of my words. I want people to see in themselves what I do, and to be able to help them do that. I want to wake up in the morning and see all possibilities, to fall into bed at night exhausted by the adventures of life.

To take more risks and spend less time dwelling on failures. To not only stop to smell the roses, but the daises and the daffodils as well. To read more good books and watch less bad TV.

I want to change my habits and my gut reactions. The way I see myself, the distorted image I’ve come to believe as truth. To allow God’s eyes to become mine, His heart to direct mine.

There are moments when I see glimpses of the person I want to become in the person I currently am, and they give me hope. Moments when I feel at peace with the world, myself and God, because I know I am doing what I am supposed to. I believe it’s possible to feel that way all the time.

I sat down to write, thinking of all the things in myself I’d like to see changed, wondering if that was even possible. Wishing to be someone else, someone braver, more confident, more sure. But really, I just need to conquer my own fears: of failure, of my own unworthiness, of, in a way, success.

It makes me sad to see other people paralyzed by fear, because all I can see in them is their potential—it’s hard for be to recognize that I am the exact same way.

But sitting here, on a porch swing with butterflies and gentle breezes, I know that there isn’t really anything to fear. I have God, who loves me, a family that supports me and friends to help me. That even if I go out on a shaky, skinny branch and end up tumbling, I won’t really hit the ground. I’ll be caught up in a net of love and faithfulness and forgiveness.

I haven’t found my next path yet, but I’m learning to believe that no matter where it takes me, it’ll all be okay.

And that there isn’t a limit on where we can go in this life, except those which we place on ourselves.